


the boy's no good

by shoelaces



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Road Trips, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Violence, conversion therapy, more tags will be added as they become appropriate, references to CSA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2020-10-25 14:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 65,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoelaces/pseuds/shoelaces
Summary: “She took some of my stuff.” Eddie replies, pulling at a thread on his t-shirt.“Objects that encourage femininity, fragility, and emotional and physical attraction to the same sex,” Stanley reels off, nodding.“My journal,” Eddie says quietly.“Past feelings of homosexuality,” Stanley says flatly. “Don’t write anything they wouldn’t like in the new one they give you. They read them. You can say you miss home, but don’t mention any male friends. Don’t talk about any of the boys here. Don’t slag the camp off, or they’ll put you away.”-1993- When Sonia Kaspbrak catches Eddie kissing Richie, she sends him away to be treated for his sins in another state. Whilst Eddie searches for ways to fight back alongside new friends Stanley and Beverly, Richie unites a ragtag group of losers for a journey across America to rescue him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarka_stically](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarka_stically/gifts).

> to clarify before we start: i am writing this as an lgbt person who has not been through the undoubted horrors of conversion therapy, but is all too familiar with homophobia. my intention is not to fetishise, glorify, or romanticise appalling acts of hatred. that said, this story will stay true to life and as such will include homophobic language and environments, a number of real treatments (which i will tag for and warn in chapter notes) and potentially upsetting content. read carefully, but enjoy!
> 
> additionally, all my love to šárka for partially coming up with this idea, and to tara, léa, ella, stereo, and ike for the encouragement!

The gay couple who live at the end of the street are sinners, Eddie’s mother tells him one summer when she catches him watching as the taller man interlocks his fingers with his boyfriend’s and they walk off down the road. He stops staring because the sun is in his eyes, and he doesn’t understand why her words are making his stomach turn squeeze into a knot.

He is eight years old, and this is the summer he starts biting his nails down to the quick. She tells him he has anxiety, and gives him little white pills that he learns how to swallow without choking so she won’t shout at him.

When he mentions that he has to take his pills the night he sleeps over at Bill’s house, Bill’s parents exchange a strange look, and he squirms uncomfortably in his seat before Bill drags him away to play Pac-Man and the whole thing slips his mind.

They stop having time to have him over when baby Georgie is born, so Eddie spends the next summer shut in his house watching Wheel of Fortune with his mother and faking enthusiasm when she points out the prettiest women. They don’t make him feel anything. Apparently they’re supposed to, but maybe it’s just a side effect of the medicine. 

When school starts again he meets Richie, and well, he’s Richie, and things stop being so boring. Richie is loud and trashy and annoying, and he’s  _ free  _ in a way that Eddie has never seen. He runs wild around Derry and he drags Eddie with him. When he’s tearing about through the woods with Richie, he doesn’t feel like he’s so ill, even though he’s taking three different types of pill now and using his inhaler regularly. Richie calls him a druggie, and he thinks it sounds better than being the sick boy, but he still lets his mother make a scene over his grazed knees and line his little orange pill bottles up in front of him on the dining table like they’re a meal.

Bill hangs out with them too. They’re all losers, with Bill’s stutter, and Richie’s glasses, and Eddie’s failing health locking them out of the cool groups pretty much permanently. They’re in good company, at least, with Ben and Mike, who fit in so easily it’s like they’ve always been a part of the group.

Eddie considers it a pretty satisfactory life. He takes his medicine, tells his mom about girls at school, and makes grades just good enough that no one will take notice of him either way.

The years fly by once he settles into his routine. Some things never change, but he keeps himself interested. The group play Super Mario Bros. after school and Dungeons & Dragons on the weekends. They stay up late in chatrooms talking about homework and the classmates they hate, and Eddie sneaks onto the computer and reads about the AIDS crisis with a sick kind of horror before deleting his internet history and sneaking back to bed.

By the time he’s sixteen, he’s a master at sneaking about. His mother is more overbearing every day, diagnosing him with terrible things and dreaming up tragedies that could befall him if he dares to go out without her. When Georgie is nearly kidnapped one afternoon, she locks him in his room for a week and Richie climbs the tree in his garden to bring him candy, always offering a series of insults. 

“Your mom is seriously fucked up, man,” he says one day at the quarry. He’s shouting a bit, because he’s smoking and has to stand at a distance so he doesn’t give Eddie an asthma attack. “What’s she on about now?” 

Bill opens one eye to look at him from where he’s lying in the sun. 

“She thinks I have a tumour,” Eddie drones. “I had a stomach ache the other night, so it means I’m dying probably.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Richie says idly. “She’s probably frustrated, ‘cause I haven’t visited her in a while.”

“Beep beep, Richie,” he replies half-heartedly. “Get new jokes.”

“Oh, it’s not a joke, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie blows smoke into the air, and somewhere in the water Eddie can hear Ben and Mike laughing. “Your mom and I always have a really special time together.” He flicks his cigarette away into the undergrowth.

Eddie bounces to his feet and charges Richie, pretending to throw him over the edge. Richie is shrieking with laughter, and his bare skin is warm in the sun under Eddie’s fingers.

Eddie is holding onto his arm and Richie is flailing about like an idiot, his hands all over the place. Neither of them are wearing shirts, just their swimming trunks, because Eddie’s mom will kill them if their clothes get wet.

He’s not exactly comfortable with his body. In a weird way, he thinks of it in the same way he thinks of the computer in his back room. A fragile machine that breaks and malfunctions at the slightest push. At least that’s what his mother tells him.

Richie, at least, is fucking insane, and has a tendency towards trying to break him. This is why Eddie isn’t surprised when Richie bounds backwards a few steps and pulls them both over the edge of the quarry.

He lets go of Richie’s arm somewhere in the fall, and opens his eyes in the water to see a blurry image of his best friend floating in front of him with his glasses askew and a wide smile. 

Richie pulls him back up to the surface, and they both tread water for a moment, gasping. Richie’s hair is plastered to his face, and there’s water dripping off his nose. Eddie thinks in that moment that Richie might not be attractive in any conventional way, but there’s something about him that makes him keep looking.

He wants to kiss him and he’s terrified. He’s always wanted to kiss him, and he’s always been afraid.

Before Richie can ask about the look on his face, and he’s sure it’s some twisted expression, he plunges his head back under and lets his small body drift in the green.

He drifts until his lungs ache, then resurfaces when he knows he can’t push himself any further, cursing himself for being so stupidly weak.

“You trying to drown yourself?” Mike paddles over, a bright smile on his face. He doesn’t sound all too concerned, so Eddie figures he probably looks a little less dreadful even though his heart feels like it’s about to smash through his ribcage.

Ben floats over too, scoops Richie up with the kind of easy smile that suggests this is nothing more to him than a game they’re all playing. Touching a boy means nothing more to him than that he’s touching a boy. He drops Richie into the water before turning back to Eddie.

“I’m not gonna be the one to tell your mom if you drown yourself,” Ben says, pushing wet hair out of his eyes. 

“You’re the only one of us she likes, Benny,” Richie points out, floating onto his back. “We’re no strings attached. Hate sex.”

“I hate  _ you, _ ” Eddie says, and tries not to associate it with sex. It comes out slightly hoarse, and he coughs a bit, nearly slipping under again.

“Woah, Spaghetti Man,” Richie catches his arm, and he nearly jerks it away. “You need your inhaler? 

“Mhm,” Eddie replies, because his throat is feeling tight. 

“Okay,” Richie says, serious for once. “Let’s go back to Bill and get your drugs, yeah?”

Ben and Mike come too, trudging their way out of the water with feet squelching in the dirt around it.

“Don’t walk all the way up the hill,” Ben says. “You’ll blow your lungs out. I’ll get your inhaler.” 

“I’ll come,” Mike says, and Eddie wonders if he replies a little too fast. “Wait here.”

They disappear back up the hill, Mike jogging and Ben trailing behind in what can most kindly be described as an urgent stumble. They’re good guys, Ben and Mike. The adults in the town all adore Ben, call him a “good lad” and offer help when he needs it. They’re not so kind to Mike, because this is small-town America and Mike is the only black boy in town, but they largely ignore him or treat him with a strange stilted politeness.

Richie and Eddie don’t get quite the same benefit of the doubt. Everywhere Richie goes, he seems to be followed by whispers that he’s a weird, troubled kid, and why do his parents let him behave this way? He’s no good, a bit odd, a little hell-raiser. Most of that gets thrown back in Eddie’s face as he follows Richie around, laughs at all the things the adults frown at. 

He once heard a neighbour say Eddie had “a certain fae quality” and went home to ask his mom what it meant. She had nearly burst into tears, told him it wasn’t his fault he was so unwell, and the next morning Richie had explained what it meant and awkwardly told him it would be fine if he was. It was phrased more like Richie being pleased to have less competition, but he had been sure he meant well enough.

Eddie slides slowly down the trunk of a tree, feeling the bark scrape his back until he’s sitting on the ground, his knees like little hooks sticking up in front of his chest.

Richie has that same look from that day on his face again. It’s humorous, but with a slightly soft edge.

“If I had your mother,” he eventually says, “I think I’d just let an asthma attack kill me.”

“Because you couldn’t bang her?”

Richie crows with laughter. “That’s my Eds!”

Whatever moment of vulnerability they might have been having, it’s dead in the water now. Richie’s not going to bring that softness to the surface again, Eddie isn’t going to let that conversation start because he doesn’t know what he’d say.

Eddie wriggles his toes in the dirt and focuses on breathing. Richie is sat down next to him, his sharp elbows poking into Eddie’s side.

He still smells like smoke, even though he’s been in the water. It clings to him like sickness clings to Eddie, and it’s probably not good for his asthma.

Or indeed his mental health, if he keeps thinking about his hands and his lips like that.

“You’ve been weird recently,” Richie says eventually. 

Eddie tilts his head at him, raises a challenging eyebrow.

“Your mom got you on new pills again? You’re like, leaking chemicals.”

“Just anaemia tablets,” he says quietly. “I’m fine, Rich.”

Richie huffs in disagreement, but doesn’t say anything. One of his hands hovers near Eddie’s shoulder like he wants to touch it.

“You’ll be okay,” he settles on. “Eventually.”

“Eventually,” Eddie echos. 

“Eddie!” Mike calls, and the spell is broken as the others come hurrying back down the hill. “Good to see you still with us.”

“Sorry we tuh-took so long,” Bill says. He’s been quiet lately, embarrassed by his stutter. Eddie isn’t sure what’s suddenly changed, but he misses his friend’s voice.

Ben gives Eddie his inhaler, and swings his bag over his back. “We bought all the clothes back down,” he says. “We should be heading home anyway.”

“I’m supposed to buh-babysit Georgie later,” Bill chips in.

“Georgie!” Richie says delightedly. “Tell him hi from me!”

Eddie takes puffs of his inhaler as they talk and get dressed. It’s easier to breathe now, but the heavy feeling in his chest hasn’t gone away. It doesn’t go away even as they’re walking down the street, when Mike breaks away to head towards his farm and Ben disappears down his street.

Eventually, it’s just him, Richie, and Bill walking down the road. The original terrible trio. He’s known them both as long as he remembers. They’re as integral to his survival as all the pills he takes, and a million times better to have around.

At Bill’s house, Georgie runs from the front door to greet them in the street. He’s wearing a soft, eggshell-blue jumper, and clutching a little action figure in one sticky hand.

“Billy!” Georgie calls, and Bill smiles widely and picks him up to spin him around.

“What did you do tuh-today?” Bill asks him, resting him on his hip.

Georgie starts talking a mile a minute about some show he watches that Eddie can’t even begin to understand. Richie chimes in occasionally, with an exaggerated “wow!” or a question about his favourite character. He’s not sure how either of them do it. He loves Georgie to pieces, and for some reason Georgie thinks the sun shines out of his armpits, but he can’t quite cross the barrier to talk to him like the others do.

“Are Richie and Eddie staying for dinner?” Georgie asks, dropping back to the ground when Bill’s arms start to tremble with the weight of him. “We’re having lasagna!” He pronounces the g in lasagna, and Richie makes eye contact with Eddie as they both hide their smiles.

“Aw, not today, Georgie!” Richie says brightly, fluffing his hair. “Me and Eds have stuff to do.”

Georgie stares for a moment, narrows his eyes, and Eddie is suddenly irrationally afraid that Georgie has seen right through him, is going to ask if he’s gay, if he’s gay for Richie.

“Okay!” Georgie says cheerfully, and runs back into the house, Bill hurrying after him and waving goodbye.

“You wanna play something?” Richie asks simply, and Eddie has never been able to say no to him.

Twenty minutes later, they’re sat on Eddie’s bed. They had meant to go downstairs to play on the computer after dumping their bags, but they haven’t been able to stop talking long enough to get up.

Richie is lying on his back, holding a comic over his head, which is sticking just over the edge of the bed so that his hair, which is long and unruly, is brushing Eddie’s cheek as he sits on the floor.

“I wish I had some of this stuff,” Richie says idly. “My parents won’t let me hoard comics like this.”

“My mom is like, the queen of hoarding,” Eddie says flatly. “You know her. Total nutcase.”

Sonia Kaspbrak herself is downstairs, napping on the couch he thinks, because he can’t hear her heavy footsteps moving around. He’s gotten good at recognising those.

“Ah, she’s not so bad, Eds,” Richie says cheerfully. “They fuck you up, your mom and dad.” It sounds vaguely familiar, like he’s quoting something Eddie doesn’t quite recognise. “It’s just nature, my friend.”

The word  _ friend _ sounds strange on his tongue, like he’s not quite convinced he’s saying it right. Eddie drops his head against the side of his bed to look at him, but his face is giving nothing away.

“Whatever,” he says. “I can’t wait to get out of this town.”

“God, me neither,” Richie replies earnestly. “I’m gonna make it big somewhere, Eds. And I am never coming back here.”

“I think I’ll have to,” he says. “Can you imagine me getting out of here without hysterics?”

“I’ll visit your mom too,” Richie says sagely, and Eddie shoves him so hard he topples and flops onto the floor, staring up at him from amid a tangle of black curls.

“Knock it off, Rich,” he says. “I’m serious. I would do anything to get out of here.”

“Small-town America isn’t good for you,” Richie replies. “You belong in the big city, Eds. Like me.”

“Do I?” Eddie asks, because this doesn’t quite gel with the image he has of himself in his mind. 

Richie considers. “Maybe I just want you where I am,” he says finally.

And then it’s not clear who moves first, but Richie’s hand is in his hair and he’s kissing him, and he tastes like cigarettes and the dirty water in the quarry, which should disgust him beyond all functioning, but he can’t seem to wake up that part of himself.

He thinks  _ I am kissing Richie. _

He thinks  _ I am doing something very terrible. _

Eddie kisses Richie like all the oxygen in the world is in his lungs, like if he can stay like this forever then he will be able to breathe just fine. Richie’s leg is pressing into his ribs where he’s sat up awkwardly, and he wonders if he can feel his heart beating over the fragile bone of his knee. 

It’s everything he’s ever wanted, and everything he’s been too terrified to face, but it’s happening now so  _ fuck it. _

“ _ Edward?!”  _ A voice says in the doorway, and he breaks away from the kiss so fast that Richie cries out in surprise and pain where he’s hit him in the teeth.

His mother is standing in the doorway, her face purple with...rage? Or is it anxiety, horror, any number of terrible emotions?

“Edward,” she says again, and the spell is broken.

Richie flies to his feet, his face very white but his lips a little too red. “Mrs Kaspbrak-” 

“Quiet,” she says, and when she holds up her hand, Eddie sees that she’s shaking. “Get out of my house. Do not come near my boy again.”

“Eddie-” Richie says desperately, looking at him. Eddie feels like he’s experiencing the whole thing through a thick layer of cotton wool. Everything is cloudy and distant and wrong. 

“You’ve made him sick,” his mother hisses. “You’ve ruined him. Get out!”

Richie looks like a deer in the headlights, and Eddie desperately wants to take his hand, but he can’t put him through whatever’s coming next.

“Just go,” he whispers, voice hoarse. “Richie, please just go.”

Richie looks for a second like he’s about to protest, but then he slowly picks up his bag with trembling fingers and walks out of the room. 

A few moments later, the front door clicks shut.

Eddie tilts his chin upward, tightens his jaw, and waits for the world to give way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sonia makes a decision, Eddie is trapped, and Richie races to stop it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, thank you so much for the response to the first chapter! all the comments warmed my cold little heart. warnings for this chapter are homophobic language, allusions to conversion therapy treatment, and sonia's abusive parenting. also taking this time to note that i'm british and as such, america is a mystery. thank you to tara for explaining what it is. scary. my condolences if you live there. on with the chapter!

“Eddie-bear,” His mother says says. “Oh, sweetheart.”

Why is she being so nice?

“It’s okay, everything’s fine,” she says, and he stumbles to sit on the edge of his bed. “You’re just unwell.”

“Unwell?!” Eddie replies incredulously. 

“It’s not natural, darling,” she says. “I know my boy. You always talk to me about the pretty girls at school!” Her voice is desperate.

“I was lying, mom!” He shouts back louder than he means to, and his voice is cracking so much he feels like it could shatter in his throat. “I was obviously lying!”

“Eddie,” she says, her voice low and furious. “You do not raise your voice at me.”

“It’s just _ Richie _ ,” he says softly, as if Richie could ever be _ just _anything. “Mom, you know him!”

She shakes her head. “That boy does not love you the way you need to be loved.”

“Do you?” He’s shocked he even says this, shrinking back the second the words leave his mouth, wishing he could suck them back in like the smoke of Richie’s cigarettes.

“You need someone gentle, Eddie,” she says. “You’re too fragile, and you’re still so sick. That boy hurts you. He makes you different.”

“I want to be different!” Eddie cries, tears rising in his eyes. “I want to be the person he makes me!”

His mother looks at him for a long moment, and he feels her gaze press down on his chest.

Then, she turns and walks out, shutting the door behind her. 

He is not supposed to follow her, he knows this. She wants him to sit here and hate himself until he is ready to apologise.

For once, he is not going to.

* * *

Richie shuts Eddie’s front door behind him, but he doesn’t walk home, just stumbles to sit by the road, just out of sight of any windows Sonia might look out of. 

He thinks he might be sick.

It’s not that he’s afraid of people finding out he’s gay, although he is, but the knowledge that people are going to find out his secret is like a raised hand at the back of a classroom, insistent and desperate and ignored.

He’s only worried about Eddie. Horribly, sickeningly worried. His own parents may be distant, busy, and frankly a little bewildered by him him (he’s not sure how anyone can be bored of him when he acts like _ this _) but Sonia Kaspbrak is something else entirely.

Eddie was never scared of monsters under the bed when he was little. The monster tucked him in every night.

Richie doesn’t know what to do. He can’t go back in there, he has no idea what Sonia might do to Eddie if he does. God, Eddie had looked so fucking frightened standing there in her shadow, and Richie always teases him for being small and frail and easy to scare if you jump out from behind a door, but when he sees him like this all he wants to do is snatch him away in a stolen car and drive for the horizons.

He wonders, ridiculously, if they could do that now. If he could climb up the tree in Eddie’s garden, take him from his room like some fucking crazy Rapunzel rip-off, and they could flee town. It all falls into place in his imagination, a car on the highway, waffles or pancakes at little diners, sending postcards to Mike and Ben and Bill on the road. Motels, hotels, an apartment, a house with a white picket fence and a dog running around in the garden.

Fucking hell, it was just one kiss. 

Before he can spiral any further down into that train of thought, he hears an almighty slam from inside the house. It nearly shakes the fucking walls.

He can’t leave Eddie like that. Not Eddie, not there.

Before Sonia can make it down the stairs to see him move through her window, he scrambles around the side of the house to stand flat against the wall under Eddie’s window.

There’s not a peep. Eddie doesn’t come to the window, and Richie hates the idea that he might think he’s just run off, left him there alone when it’s all his fault anyway for kissing him like that. He couldn’t pretend it wasn’t there any longer, but it was so stupid to do it in Eddie’s house.

Same as he’s always done when Eddie’s in a pinch, he climbs the tree.

Eddie is sitting with his back to the window, perched on the edge of the bed looking for all the world like a little bird waiting to take flight. His tiny shoulders are hunched, and Richie can see his spine pushing through his shirt. He wants to run a finger down it, feel Eddie warm and alive beneath him.

He raps gently on the window.

Eddie jumps like he’s had an electric shock, which would normally be hilarious to Richie, but he’s not laughing now. His face softens once he sees Richie at the window, but he doesn’t come over. His eyes are huge and dark in his pale face. Whatever his mother has said to him, it’s not good.

They lock eyes for a moment, Richie balancing in the tree with his palms against the glass and Eddie still hunched at the end of his bed. 

When he finally shuffles over to the window himself, Richie can see that his eyes are damp, tears still clinging to his lashes. 

“Richie,” he mouths, clearly too afraid to speak aloud. He mouths something else that Richie can’t quite put together, but he thinks he sees the word _ sorry _on Eddie’s lips.

“Don’t,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”

Then Eddie’s eyes widen in panic, and he’s mouthing for Richie to _ go, get out of here _ , and the doorknob turns, and Richie slides down the tree so hard and fast that it scratches his palms up til they bleed, and he tears away from the house with the words _ I love you _on fire on his tongue.

* * *

Richie is gone and Eddie is alone. Or, not alone as such because his mother is standing in the doorway again with a cold, stone-like expression on her face, but he certainly feels it. 

“I’ve been on the phone, Eddie,” she says, and he fights the urge to snap _ well, good for you _because he thinks she might hit him. “Talking to some friends of mine.”

“Okay,” he says, fingers curling into his sheets. Out of the corner of his eye, he can still see Richie’s fingerprints on the window pane. It’s weirdly comforting, like a ghostly reminder that someone is still watching out for him. 

“There’s a lovely place,” she says. “In California.”

“_ California _ ?!” Eddie can’t disguise his shock. “What _ place _?!”

“It’s like a summer camp,” she barrels on. “Or a school, because some people aren’t just there for the summer. For children like you, who’ve been misled. Because, Eddie, it’s not your fault, and these people are going to help you!”

Oh god, he knows what she’s talking about. From whispers at school, discarded pamphlets, the websites about LGBT communities that he sometimes trawls whilst she naps.

Images flash through his head. Electric shocks, starvation, isolation, praying to someone who’s let him down so many times he would rather not believe at all. 

He cannot go somewhere like that. He will not survive somewhere like that.

“Mom,” he says, voice shaking. “Please.”

“Oh Eddie, I know it’ll be hard to be away from home,” she says, like that’s not everything he’s been wishing for since he was old enough to realise how wrong things were in his house. “I know, sweetie. But this is an extremely impressive place! It’s a scientific institution actually, not even Christian, and I know how much you love science. Weren’t you interested in psychology?”

He’s never been interested in psychology.

“It’s excellent, Eddie, a very lovely place. Do you remember Henrietta? Her son has been there, it’s worked wonders. Nothing nasty at all.”

“It’s conversion therapy!” Eddie shouts. “Mom, you can’t pack me off to California and just make me straight!”

“That’s exactly what I can do,” she says, her voice terrifyingly calm. I’ve already spoken to Henrietta, she’s looking to pull some strings with the staff there so we can get you help as soon as possible.”

“I don’t need help,” he tells her, hands trembling. “I don’t- I-”

“That’s enough, Edward.”

Eddie feels like his brain has shut down. He can’t even find it in him to fight back anymore. It’s all drained out of him suddenly like someone has pulled the plug on every bit of fight and grit he has in him. It happens sometimes, these intense low moods out of nowhere that he can’t pull himself out of. They baffle his friends, and him even more. Though he supposes this isn’t exactly out of nowhere, because his mother is sending him across the country to have god knows what done to him in the name of wiping out a part of himself he had worked so hard to hide.

_ The day he had asked Richie what being a little fae meant, Richie had swung his feet up into their hammock so hard that the whole thing had rocked. They’d been folded in there together because it was Eddie’s turn, but Richie didn’t want to budge. _

_ “Well, Eds,” Richie had said. “When a man and another man love each other very much-” _

_ Eddie had grimaced. “Ugh, okay, I get it.” _

_ “Don’t worry about it, Eddie,” Mike had said off-handedly, pre-occupied with something else. Ben had been napping, and Bill was hunched over an exercise book, finishing the English project he had left way too late. _

_ “You can be whatever you want to be, Eddie boy,” Richie had continued, tone jokey but he was making eye contact with Eddie like he meant it. “You’ll always be my go-to man if I have malaria.” _

Richie would never have made him hide it. If he’d confided sooner, maybe he wouldn’t have been so stupid as to kiss Richie in his own house.

“You should start packing,” his mother says. “I don’t want that boy sneaking back here, we’ll be staying with your aunt until they can secure you a bed there.” 

“It’s just Richie,” he says weakly. “Can I say goodbye to any of my friends?”

She sighs. “Because I love you,” she says, like it’s a chore, “You can call Bill before we go. Now pack yourself a bag.” 

She leaves him alone after that, and he packs a bag with shaking hands. His mind feels so numb that he’s barely even thinking about it. The panic will set in later, he knows, but right now it’s just a dull alarm in the back of his skull.

He’d love to talk to Richie right now. He wants to understand what the kiss meant, if they were just fooling around or if it was as real to Richie as it was to him. Even though the idea of holding hands with a boy around Derry, kissing him, is utterly terrifying, but he wants it more than anything.

Once he’s packed a neat bag, full of what he assumes is the inoffensive possessions of a good Christian boy, his mother lets him use the phone. 

It’s picked up almost immediately, and to his horror, Georgie’s voice is in his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Georgie,” Eddie says. “Can I talk to Billy?”

“He’s not supposed to talk right now,” Georgie says, and Eddie’s heart sinks. “He’s doing chores.”

“Georgie, it’s important,” he says urgently, and his mother taps her watch. “Not even for a minute?”

“Mom would be mad,” Georgie says. 

“Okay,” Eddie replies, because he can’t push Georgie any further. “Okay, Georgie, can you tell Bill something for me?” He scrambles to think of a way to put it that won’t frighten Georgie or out him and Richie.

“Yeah,” Georgie says, and Eddie can hear him scuffing his feet because he’s bored.

“Tell Bill I had to go away for a bit, okay?” Eddie says gently. “I did something, and my mom is sending me...on holiday.”

“That sounds nice!” Georgie chirps. 

“Yeah.”

“Will you be back soon?”

“I’m not sure,” Eddie tells him. “I hope so. Don’t forget to tell Bill, okay?”

“Okay! Bye!” Georgie says brightly, then hangs up. Eddie clutches the phone for a second, listening to the tone. He hopes Georgie passes on the right message. Bill is smart, he’ll be able to figure it out once he learns what he and Richie have done.

He slowly puts the phone down. “Thank you, Mommy,” he says quietly.

“That’s okay, sweetheart,” she says. “I’m just looking out for you. Are you all packed? Auntie Liz is expecting us.”

Eddie lets her put his suitcase in the back of the car (because he shouldn’t put any strain on his weak heart, she says) and climbs into the back because he’s not allowed to ride in the front seat.

He leans his head against the window, and curses every faceless home and everyone who lives in them as they drive past the little sign in the grass, _ You are now leaving Derry! _printed in fading red.

* * *

Richie, of course, has no plans to actually abandon Eddie. If he has to, he’ll sneak him into his own house until this either blows over or Sonia fucking Kapsbrak finally gives herself a fatal heart attack.

Eddie is always there for him in moments of crisis. When he accidentally got too high for the first time and freaked, when he crashed his father’s car, when Patrick Hockstetter slammed his head into the ground. Eddie was there each time, rubbing his back, helping fix the damage, sitting in the uncomfortable chairs at the emergency room with him.

_ “You’re a total dumbass,” Eddie had said to him, swinging his legs back and forth. “Patrick’s like five times taller than you.” _

_ “That makes him twenty times taller than you,” Richie quipped, and Eddie smacks the ice pack back onto his face. _

_ “You better hope you have a concussion,” he had said. “Then I can excuse the dumb shit you’re saying.” _

_ “You love me really,” Richie shot back, and his split lip stung when Eddie made him smile. _

_ “Why were you fighting him anyway?” _

_ And he wasn’t going to tell Eddie that Patrick had called him a fag and a homo, or that he had said Eddie fucked older guys for money. It was a can of worms he never wanted to open, so he had just laughed and said it was the usual shit. Whatever Eddie wanted that to mean. _

Like hell he’s going to abandon Eddie now he’s in the shit. He kissed him because he is brave and funny and kind, but also because he desperately wants him to know that he is there for him, even though he can’t stop making (in his defence, very funny) jokes, he can be genuine and sincere and good.

This is why he runs to his house so fast that he feels like he’s the one with asthma, and understands why Eddie feels like his lungs are about to burst so often. 

He doesn’t stop to speak to his parents, although he crashes around the house so often that he doubts they notice anything amiss. Car keys, rucksack, the old walkie-talkie they used to use to chat before Eddie’s mom took his away and Bill’s stutter got so bad that with the poor signal, they couldn’t understand a word he said.

Richie is not a great driver. He likes to push the speed limit, take shortcuts, and piss off everyone in the car with his singing. He’s definitely speeding now, and absolutely cutting corners, but he’s grimly silent. If his friends were here, they’d probably quite enjoy it, but they’re not. He’ll have to call Bill, Mike, and Ben later. They’re good planners. They’ll know how to help.

He just has to get Eddie out of there first.

Except when he arrives at the house, something is very wrong. The Kaspbrak’s car is gone from the driveway where it had been just hours ago. The curtains are drawn, the windows locked.

What the fuck is going on?

Yet again, he finds himself at the base of the tree. His palms are stinging, and Eddie would probably scream at him to clean them and put band-aids on, but the Eddie upstairs is far more important than the Eddie in his head.

When he scrambles back up the branch, Eddie’s room is dark. The bed is made, the comics they had been reading put neatly back on the shelves. His inhaler and medicine box are gone from his bedside table.

Eddie is gone.

Richie sits there in the branches, palms burning and something he doesn’t have a name for taking root in his throat.

Something has happened. Something terrible, he’s sure of it. 

He lands back on the ground, heart beating hard in his chest like it did when he kissed him, and sets off towards his car. Maybe he wasn’t too off the mark with his madcap Rapunzel dream at all.

Eddie has been whisked away somewhere, definitely against his will. His mother is a cruel fucking bitch, and she’s as different to Richie as anyone could be.

She makes Eddie cry, and Richie makes him laugh.

She tells him he is weak, and Richie makes him strong.

She has taken him away, and Richie will bring him home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! i know this chapter was low on character interactions, but it was necessary exposition. next chapter will have lots and lots of the whole gang to make up for it. promise! comments and kudos make my day, and i'm on tumblr @ghostmontygreen!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie calls in Bill, Georgie passes on a clue, and Eddie goes across the country.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter: internalised homophobia, an imagination of sexual assault that doesn't occur, some homophobic language and themes

By the time Richie pulls up at Bill’s house, he’s ever so slightly hysterical.

He might have scratched his dad’s car up, and Eddie isn’t here to help him paint over it, but it doesn’t matter right now. His parents won’t notice for a while, and once he can find a way to explain what has happened, they probably won’t even ground him.

He raps on Bill’s front door hard. They probably won’t think anything of that, he has a habit of battering his friend’s doors until they answer them. That’s probably why Sonia doesn’t like him. That and her conviction that he’s made her son gay with his evil powers.

Mrs Denbrough opens the door, frowns at his expression.

“Richie?” Her voice is sweet, concerned. “What are you doing here?”

“I-” His voice hitches uncontrollably in his throat. “I need to talk to Bill.”

She looks like she wants to argue, but he’s clearly distressed enough that he gets a pass. “He’s in his room,” she says.

Richie nods his thanks and slips past her up the stairs.

When he bursts through Bill’s bedroom door, his friend looks up with only mild surprise until he sees the look on his face.

“Ruh-Richie?” Bill frowns. “What? What’s wrong?”

He can’t come up with an answer. Everything is wrong. And he never cries in front of Bill, ever, but suddenly he’s sobbing in the middle of Bill’s bedroom and Bill’s on his feet with his hands on Richie’s shoulders, guiding him back to sit on the bed.

He sits there for a minute, crying into Bill’s shoulder like he’s never going to stop. 

“Richie, what happened?” Bill asks again. He’s aghast, clearly.

“Eds, Eddie, he-” He’s terrified suddenly. Any explanation of what’s just happened means he has to tell him he kissed him. It’s not that he thinks Bill is homophobic, or that he’ll react badly at all. Bill is one of the very few people he unquestionably trusts with his life. But he hasn’t prepared himself to share it, and it means telling Eddie’s secret too, which seems hopelessly unfair.

“Did something happen to Eddie?” Concern fills his voice. “Richie, is he hu-hurt?”

“I don’t know!” Richie sobs. “I don’t know, Bill, I don’t know.”

Bill, utterly lost, rubs at his back. “You need to tell m-me what huh-happened,” he says. “Where’s Eddie?”

“His mom, she’s done something to him,” Richie chokes out, and Bill’s eyes widen. They all know what Sonia can be like. “He’s gone, all his stuff is gone, and their car-”

“Shit,” Bill whispers, tugging on his earlobe. “Everything?”

“He must have packed a bag,” Richie explains shakily. “His inhaler and his medicine box aren’t there. The curtains, oh and the windows are all locked, the lights are off!”

He stares at Bill, breathing heavily, begging him to fix this somehow. Bill fixes things, he always does. He’s not the leader of their group for nothing. Being around him usually calms him down but right now, his heart is racing and his throat is tight and he can’t stop imagining Eddie locked in the car, Eddie crying, Eddie on the side of the road, in a ditch, in a stream, face-down like all the gay boys end up.

Lost in a spiral of terrible thoughts, he almost doesn’t notice Georgie appear in the doorway.

“Georgie,” Bill says, his voice strained with fake cheer. “Me and Rich are tuh-talking, can you play buh-by yourself for a bit?”

“Are you sad because Eddie went away?” Georgie asks, leaning floppily against Bill’s door frame.

“What?” Bill sits up. “How do you-”

Richie sits very still, as if any movement could make Georgie and whatever he knows disappear.

“He called,” Georgie says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Richie’s breath catches in his throat. “He said…” He pauses, looking around Bill’s room, making a little humming noise.

“Georgie!” Richie says, then immediately regrets how snappy he sounds when Georgie’s lip starts to tremble.

“Georgie, this is important,” Bill says softly. “Can you tell- tell me what he said to you?”

“He wanted to talk to you,” Georgie says sulkily. “But you were doing chores.”

“Okay,” Bill murmurs, and Richie sees the guilt in his eyes.

“He said he did something, and his mom is sending him on holiday. He said it would be nice. And he’s not sure how long.”

“What does _ that _ mean?” Richie exclaims, turning to Bill who looks at a loss. “Did he say anything else?”

“No,” Georgie says. “I think he must have been in a hurry, ‘cause he normally talks more. I hope he comes back soon. He said he’d lend me his joke book.”

Apparently this is all he has to say, and he disappears out of the hallway leaving Bill and Richie staring open-mouthed after him.

“I should have answered the phone,” Bill says softly, and Richie wants to reassure him that it’s not his fault, but there’s a tiny part of his brain screaming that it _ is _, and Eddie would have said more if he wasn’t talking to a six-year old.

“So he’s on ‘holiday’, whatever that means,” Richie says dully. 

“Richie,” Bill says gently, like he’s talking to a child. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What?” He sniffs.

“You kn-know something,” Bill carries on. “You showed up he-here already upset, and you said she hurt him. Did you see something?”

He wants to lie. Wants to keep being Bill’s normal, well-adjusted, straight friend. If he can’t make them laugh, what’s he supposed to do? But if he can’t save Eddie, he’s nothing at all worth saving himself.

“I- uh,” Richie bites on his lip. “I kissed him, and his mom saw.” He doesn’t say if Eddie kissed him back.

Bill’s jaw drops. 

“I know this is probably a lot, but yeah, I’m-” Richie starts.

“I know,” Bill says softly. “I was just wuh-wondering when you’d actually do it.” He offers a small, shaky smile that would be teasing if it wasn’t so sad.

Well, that settles that then, he supposes. Bill wraps an arm around him and squeezes his shoulders, offers a weak smile. He’s telling him it’s okay. Nothing’s going to change. Even better, he doesn’t ask about Eddie’s involvement in any of it, lets it stay Eddie’s secret to tell when they have him back.

“I’m scared she hurt him,” Richie admits shakily. “She kicked me out, and his _ face _, god, Bill, he was terrified!”

“I’m sure he’s okay,” Bill says, firm but not sounding entirely convinced. “Sonia wouldn’t hu-hurt- she wouldn’t-” He breaks off, his face twisting in frustration as he struggles to get the words out, and Richie watches him awkwardly, tasting blood in his mouth where he’s bitten his lip too hard.

“Well, we have to _ do _ something,” he insists. “We can’t just sit here!”

“We will,” Bill forces out. “I’ll cuh-call Mike and Ben in the morning, okay?”

“In the morning?!” Richie snaps. “No, now!”

Bill looks torn. Richie knows he’s worried about Eddie too, he can see his hands trembling and the way his eyes keep welling up, but he’s less wild than Richie by far. 

“It’s late, Rich,” he says softly. “We can’t do anything tuh-tonight.”

“I-” He says, but there are no words left in his throat. He knows, realistically, that they can’t run off into the night looking for Eddie with no leads at all, but the idea of leaving it alone all night when anything could happen is burning him up.

Bill is sympathetic, at least. 

“You can stay here,” he says. “If you don’t muh-mind sleeping on the floor.”

He doesn’t mind. He can’t be alone tonight.

Eddie is alone tonight.

Bill goes downstairs to talk to his parents, and Richie stays sitting on his bed, twisting at the corner of the blanket so his hands have something to do whilst his mind races.

It’s difficult to sleep that night, knowing that the second he closes his eyes, nightmares will plague him.

* * *

Eddie only ends up staying one night at his aunt’s, and he’s glad for it.

She’s drunk when they arrive, something his mother clearly disapproves of, and he’s thrown into the spare room with his small suitcase to wait it out whilst they argue. The topics jump back and forth from alcoholism to their father (Eddie’s grandfather, who he hates) to him, and when he hears the word _ queer _spat from his mother’s mouth like poison, he decides to stop listening.

Maybe he’s not even..._ that. _He thinks Richie kissed him, after all. Perhaps it was confused feelings all along, and he’s never really connected with any nice girls, so Richie was the next best thing around.

If they had been friends with a girl, he thinks, maybe he would have had a crush on her and he would never have had to worry about Richie. But Richie was offering some kind of love that no one else was, and offering it with just a little more affection than most people, and teenage boys are bound to experiment, right?

It probably doesn’t help that his mom buys him the kind of pastel or brightly coloured clothes that his gay neighbour used to wear before he got so sick he never left the house anymore. His mom had ripped up their invitation to his funeral, worried that Eddie might somehow get AIDS from the heavy, cream-coloured paper. He remembers watching from the hall, fingers curled around his medicine box even though none of the pills in there would help him if he was diseased like that.

It’s all just circumstance, he thinks, when the house finally goes quiet and footsteps storm past his room off to bed.

He doesn’t sleep a wink. Although he lets himself entertain the idea that his friends will follow him out here, bring him home, he knows the chances are slim. But he might be here for a while, so maybe someone will come for him.

Just a few hours later, his mother appears in the doorway, such a large figure that she cuts off all the hallway light behind her.

“Up you get, sweetheart,” she says. It’s like hearing a different person. She doesn’t sound kind anymore. “The center called, we’ve got you booked on a flight out in eight hours.”

Eddie blinks at her in the still dark bedroom. Already? 

“Pick up your bag, we’re leaving. And good riddance, your aunt is driving me up the wall.”

She walks out and Eddie sits in the tangled blankets, watching all his hopes to be rescued slip through his fingers like sand.

No one, not even Richie, loves him the distance that spans from Maine to California.

He drags his bag out to the car ten minutes later, shirt rumpled, bags under his eyes. The light is hurting his eyes and his thoughts feel slow and sludgy like they can’t quite keep up with reality.

When he fumbles to take his pills, some of them spill across the driveway, and his mother’s voice, distant and echoing, tells him not to bother, which she’s never done before, and the next time he blinks, he’s in the car speeding down the highway.

“You’ll be flying alone, Eddie,” she says. “I’m sorry I can’t come, but this is so short-notice and I won’t be able to leave the car. Believe me, I’d love to check everything is nice where you’re going, but Mrs Bowers says it’s lovely, doesn’t she? Besides, I think I’ve coddled you too much. Perhaps that’s why all this has happened, but I was only trying to take care of you. My little boy.”

She sighs nostalgically, like she’s remembering a better time. Eddie suspects that her better time was just him going out of his way to suppress any inconvenient aspects of his personality rather than a life that was ever actually good, but he doesn’t say anything.

The airport is bright, confusing, and foreign. He’s never been here before, and he’s bustled through different doors and handed his passport and a boarding pass and a little green sheet of paper with _ The Wilhelm Stekel Center _ printed on it. 

His mother kneels in front of him with great effort (Eddie swears he hears every bone in her body creak) so that her red face and blotchy cheeks are right in front of him.

“I love you, Eddie-bear,” she says. “I’ll be making sure to keep updated, okay? If you do well, I’ll see you very soon.”

He nods, focusing on the bright _ Departures _sign behind her head. 

“I’ll miss you so much,” she tells him, and oh god, she’s tearing up. “My little Eddie.”

She hugs him so hard it probably leaves bruises shaped like fingerprints on his shoulder blades, and a wet patch where her tears and snot have soaked into his shirt.

It stays sticking unpleasantly to him as he leaves her to go to the boarding lounge, and then the plane. He could run, it strikes him, but he can’t get back through security here and there’s no way he’ll last a week lost in California if he slips away from the car that’s supposed to pick him up.

Despite it, he still dreams of hitchhiking around the state, in and out of different versions where he’s abducted and violated and left in a ditch, versions where his throat is cut, versions where he gets terribly sick and has no money for a doctor.

By the time the plane lands, he’s even more out of it than before. As he stumbles out into the late afternoon sunshine, he feels heavy and sick and like he hasn’t seen his friends in years.

It gets real hot in California. Eddie knows that, ‘cause Mike and Ben are good at American geography and sometimes they talk about the places they want to go. He wishes he could send them a postcard, because they’d probably get a kick out of it if the circumstances weren’t so dire.

“Eddie Kaspbrak?” There’s a woman standing on the side of the road outside the airport, which he doesn’t even remember leaving but his bag is clasped in his sweaty hand so he supposes he must have gone through baggage claim. The streets are bustling, but somehow this woman stands out like there’s a spotlight on her. She’s slim and tall, with bottle blonde hair that flicks up at the ends around her shoulders. Her face is set in a neutral expression, and she’s completely ageless.

“That’s me,” he croaks, holding up his little green slip. 

“I’m Lisa, the head of the Wilhelm Stekel Center. We’re going to drive there now, I’ll show you to your cabin, and you can meet your roommate. It’s too late for you to join today’s activities, but you can start bright and early tomorrow!” 

She pulls open the passenger door to her car, and he’s weirdly struck by the fact that he gets to ride in the front. 

“I’m not going to ask why you’ve been sent here yet,” she tells him as they leave the bustling airport behind. “I believe that’s best done in a therapy environment.”

Therapy. Jesus Christ. 

She doesn’t speak to him for the rest of the journey, until they turn down a little side road and an idyllic little camp comes into view. It looks for all the world like a real summer camp, little log cabins nestled in trees and bracken on the grounds. There’s one big bright building closest to the road, an old house adapted, Eddie thinks.

“The main building is where all our activities take place,” she says as they get out of the car. “Stanley will help you with the rooms. Your cabin has a bathroom, so you should have everything you need for tonight.” 

As she speaks, she opens the door to the little cabin that is apparently his home and guides him inside like he can’t walk on his own.

The walls are beige coloured and bare, except for a mind map on the wall next to his roommate’s bed. The bed is perfectly made, and there’s nothing in the room that indicates the kind of person he might be. 

“Stanley’s at Individual Counselling right now,” Lisa tells him, speaking like she’s talking to a little child. “He’ll be back soon. Now, I need to check your bags.”

“Why?” Eddie asks, and her face twists like he’s not supposed to ask questions. He lifts his suitcase onto the bed and unzips it.

“We want to make it easy for you here, Eddie,” she says. “We remove anything that might trigger those bad thoughts before anything can happen.” 

As she speaks, she pulls items from his bag. His pink t-shirt, his shorts with the rainbow stripes, his journal.

“You’ll get a blank one of these,” she says. “We’d rather you didn’t read back on your thoughts before you came here.” As she speaks, she drops the clothes and journal into a black bin bag. 

She picks up his medicine box next, rattles it. “You only need your inhaler,” she says. “We’ll take the rest of these and give you your doses at mealtime. Unfortunately, there have been overdoses here in the past.” 

Eddie can’t help himself. “Why do you keep doing it if it makes people kill themselves?” His voice sounds almost normal, just a little higher, a little wobblier. 

Lisa’s face tightens. “The good outweighs the harm here, Eddie,” she says eventually. “I trust you’ll come to realise that. Dinner was at seven, but I hear you ate on the plane, so we’ll see you in the dining room in the morning.”

She leaves him alone after that. The room is so empty it makes his fingers itch. There are no books to read, no computer, nothing to write or draw on. Is he just supposed to sit here? 

The mind map on the wall is the only thing in the room there is to look at, so he sidles over to look properly. 

The middle details, in neat handwriting, that his roommate was cataloguing the reasons for his SSA. Same-sex attraction, Eddie remembers. Printed around the circle are a few short statements.

_ Strained relationship with my father _

_ Distance from sports and physical activities _

_ No close male friends _

It’s depressing to look at. Eddie wonders if Stanley really believes everything he’s written, or if he’s just appeasing the staff. He’ll probably have to make his own soon enough.

He lies down on the mattress, which is decently comfy, and stares at the ceiling. This is home now. He’s wanted to be away from his mother for so long, but this place is all her doing. She’s trapped him in the world she wants for him, alone without his friends and suffocatingly safe. 

“Eddie?” A voice jolts him out of his reverie, and he shoots up embarrassingly fast to see the boy in the doorway. 

He’s tall, way taller than Eddie, with curly hair that looks like it can’t decide whether it’s blond or brown. He has a sharp, skinny face and a mouth that looks like it likes to frown. It’s frowning now actually, not unkindly, but like he’s in deep thought about something troubling.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says quietly, his voice high and clear. “I should have realised. People are always kind of out of it when they get here.”

“I’m fine,” Eddie replies quickly, because he doesn’t need his roommate thinking he’s a basket case. The kid is probably already brainwashed enough to run straight to Lisa. “You’re Stanley?”

“Yes,” Stanley says, sitting down neatly on the edge of his bed and carefully untying his shoes to leave them neatly at the side. Richie always kicks his halfway across the room, laces still tied. “Lisa’s given you the talk already?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies, pulling at a thread on his t-shirt. “She took some of my stuff.”

“Objects that encourage femininity, fragility, and emotional and physical attraction to the same sex,” Stanley reels off, nodding.

“My journal,” Eddie says quietly.

“Past feelings of homosexuality,” Stanley says flatly. “Don’t write anything they wouldn’t like in the new one they give you. They read them. You can say you miss home, but don’t mention any male friends. Don’t talk about any of the boys here. Don’t slag the camp off, or they’ll put you away.”

“Do you always just list things?” Eddie asks, scuffing his foot along the worn floor.

“I like lists,” Stanley says simply. There’s a hint of defensiveness in his voice. “I’ve done a lot of welcome tours, I guess.”

“You’ve been here a while?”

“Since January,” Stanley says.

“January?!” Eddie replies incredulously. “That’s months!”

“Yes, well, you don’t get to go until you’re cured unless your parents have a change of heart.”

“You’re still not…”

“Cured?” Stanley finishes. “Not in any way they want me to be.”

Eddie looks at him, his thin face and his sad eyes. He looks like a little ghost. There’s not even a trace of happiness in his expression. He tries to imagine his own face like that, to erase every trace of joy from it, and it’s easier than he wants it to be. 

“Okay,” he replies, because he’s not sure what else to say. 

Stanley’s eyes flicker to the clock on his bedside table. 

“It’s nearly ten,” he says softly. “If our lights are still on at ten, we’ll get put on washing up duty and it’s only your first day.” 

“Right.” Eddie is closest to the light, so he stands and switches it off, plunging the room into darkness. “Uh, thanks.” 

“I just hope it’s easy for you,” Stanley replies, and Eddie waits for him to elaborate but he just goes silent. Not the chattiest roommate in the world.

*

Eddie is curled up in bed that night, probably sometime after midnight, staring into the darkness and trying to sleep, when he hears the latch slide on their window and the creak of the frame.

He freezes, whole body coiled like a spring, ready to flee. What happens here? His head is filled with horror stories of camp counsellors sneaking into their rooms to do terrible things to them in the name of fixing them. A heavy body on top of him, breath in his ear, hands everywhere. His heart races in his chest, so loud he’s sure the intruder can hear it.

“Stan?” It’s a girl’s whisper, and she sounds like a teenager. Not what he was expecting at all. “C’mon. I’m gasping for a smoke and I need you to be lookout.”

“Ugh,” Stanley’s voice drifts back. “Bev, I’m fucking tired.” For some reason, Eddie is surprised to hear him swear.

“Staaaaan,” Bev, apparently, groans. “I literally do not trust a single other soul in this hellscape. Please, I am begging you, on my hands and knees if I wasn’t halfway through your window, come outside with me.”

Eddie switches his bedside lamp on.

Stanley and Bev both stare at him like he’s popped out of nowhere and said something insane.

“I forgot you were getting a new roommate,” Bev says slowly. “Hello new roommate. Don’t tell the counsellors?”

“Beverly.” Stanley deadpans. “You’re a genius.”

“Sorry!” She says. She looks calm, with just the tiniest hint of anxiety in her features. She has ginger hair, pulled into a ponytail and swept over her shoulder. “God, you’re not brainwashed yet, are you? That would be a record for this place.”

“I’m not gonna tell anyone,” Eddie tells them, and they both breathe a sigh of relief. “...If you let me come with you.”

“I dunno,” Bev frowns. “Three people is a lot to sneak around.”

“Bev, it’s his first night,” Stanley says. “If we leave him here on his own he might just off himself in the bathroom.” 

“Are you going to off yourself in the bathroom?” Bev asks Eddie, swinging her intense gaze around to him. 

“Uh, no?” Eddie squeaks. 

“Oh god, you’re tiny,” she sighs, and he glares at her weakly, which she meets with a laugh. “Okay, come on then. Just be quiet and stay by us.” 

Eddie wriggles out of bed and slips his shoes on. Stanley gives him a leg up and he lands gracelessly outside the window, but stays quiet. 

When they’re all leaning against the wall of the cabin, the opposite side to the main building, Bev pulls a lighter and a cigarette out of her pocket. 

“They let you have those here?” Eddie asks. 

“Oh god, no,” Bev laughs. “I stole the lighter from the office months ago. I steal the ciggies whenever I can.”

“You have a problem,” Stanley says mildly. He’s looking around the corner in case anyone comes. 

“We’re at _ conversion therapy, _Stan,” she replies. “We both have so many problems. Newbie here too. What’s your name?”

“Eddie,” he says. 

“Cute. I’m Beverly.” She blows smoke in the air in a gesture so similar to Richie’s that it makes his heart ache. “What’d you do then?” 

“I-“ Tears rise in his eyes suddenly. He can’t talk about this. 

“Oh dear,” Stanley says sadly. “It’s always like this at first. You’ll get used to it, but they’re probably going to make you talk about this tomorrow. You should be ready.”

“Brutal honesty,” Bev muses. “I got caught with my hand down a girl’s pants. However bad it was, I get it.”

Eddie doesn’t know how to reply to that, so he just nods and stares at the floor. 

“Hey, Eddie,” Stanley says, padding back around the corner. “Are you breathing okay?”

“Uh, yeah, why?” Eddie frowns. 

“I saw an inhaler in your bag,” he says. “I figured the smoke would trigger your asthma?”

“Oh damn,” Bev says, holding her cigarette at arms length like that’s going to help somehow. 

“Oh,” Eddie murmurs. “Yeah, normally it does.”

“How severe is it? Did your doctor say?” Stanley asks. 

“Yeah, my mom said it was really bad.” Eddie tells them, then frowns to himself. His mother is rapidly falling in his estimation. 

Bev narrows her eyes and Stanley chews thoughtfully on his lip. 

“She’s not...great,” Eddie admits, and it feels like saying it takes some of the heavy exhaustion of the day from his shoulders. 

“Sorry to say it, Eddie, but here probably isn’t gonna be an improvement.” Bev flicks a cigarette into the ground and kicks dirt over it. “Stanley is the only good thing about this place.”

“I wish I could say the same for you,” Stanley replies, though he’s smiling. 

“Hilarious,” Bev says, rolling her eyes. “You seem alright. You haven’t called me any slurs yet, anyway.”

“The bar’s that low?” Eddie asks, and Bev hoots with laughter before clapping a hand over her mouth as Stanley shushes her around a smile. 

He thinks, as he stands shivering in the night outside his cabin, that even though this place is dreadful, there might be nice moments to hold onto and wrap himself up in like a blanket until it’s over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> today's trivia: wilhelm stekel was one of freud's pupils and heavily influential in the creation of conversion therapy
> 
> thank you for reading! this was a long one, because there was a lot to get through! ben and mike warriors, i promise they're in the next chapter. comments and kudos make my heart grow strong!
> 
> tumblr: ghostmontygreen


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old faces, secrets abound, and the gang together at last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 4!! the odds were AGAINST me this week. my laptop broke down, i've been busy with people's birthdays, my course kicked off again. but here we are!! the drama begins.
> 
> warnings: homophobic language, discussion of a suicide, speculations of violence, actual violence, mention of sexual abuse, and terrible conversion therapy practices

Eddie doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have done at some point because the morning bell wakes him up just as rudely as ice water being poured on his head.

“Is it that loud every morning?” He mumbles, pulling his blanket back over his head.

“Unfortunately,” Stanley replies, and Eddie watches him smooth the blankets over his bed. He’s already wide awake, although the shadows under his eyes tell a different story. They had clambered back through their window at 3am, Eddie delirious with lack of sleep and Stanley suddenly quiet and unreceptive. Bev had seemed familiar with it, telling them to “go catch some fucking z’s” when he started answering only in short, clipped sentences.

“Ughhh,” Eddie sits up, rubs his eyes. He thinks it’ll take a few days to recover, just physically, from the insanity of the last few days. “What’s gonna happen?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Stanley says. “That means breakfast, therapy with the other boys, then a conference after lunch.”

“What’s the conference?”

“A speech,” Stanley tells him. “It sounds like they have a different one every week, but Bev and I have been here so long that we know the rota now. We can do some of them off by heart.” There’s the tiniest edge of pride to his voice, which Eddie thinks is completely ridiculous, but he supposes you have to make your own fun in a place like this.

He doesn’t call it out, just pulls on the blandest clothes he can find in his suitcase and follows Stanley out to the main building for breakfast.

The dining room looks eerily like the canteen at his school, a room so familiar it makes his heart ache for Derry High of all places. There are little round tables of three or four, all of them filled with kids around Eddie’s age. Most of them look as gray-faced and hollow as Stanley does.

At least Bev, in the harsh light of day, still has the same bright eyes she had the night before. It’s nice to be greeted with a smile, even if there’s something a tad manic behind it. In the daylight, he can see her freckles.

“Good morning, boys,” she says, depositing a slice of toast (so dry that it makes a dull clink) onto Stanley’s plate. “I trust we all slept well.”

“Perfectly,” Stanley says, cutting his slice in two neatly. “I trust you’re treating your lungs well.”

Eddie isn’t sure how he can cut into their easy camaraderie, carve out a space for himself in the table and their lives, but they are kind and funny and he thinks he might need them to survive. He listens to them bicker back and forth, chews on a slice of toast that doesn’t taste of anything and drinks a glass of watery juice.

“I’ve got therapy with the other girls this afternoon,” Bev tells them. “Do you know how grim that shit is? Everyone just talks about men who abused them, and how we’re all like this because we’re afraid of men. And it’s like, how does that explain why I like men too? I’ve kissed guys. I just got  _ caught  _ with a girl.” She points her butter knife at Eddie, as an emphatic gesture rather than a threat. “And why do they never tell you guys you’re afraid of girls?”

“I’m totally afraid of you,” Stanley says.

“As you should be. And if Eddie rats us out, he’s gonna find that out too.” She winks at him, but there’s an implicit warning in there.  _ Don’t take this away from us.  _ “Stan’s last roommate told on us as soon as he caught us. We didn’t get to go to meals for like three days.”

“They starved you?” Eddie can’t disguise the shock in his voice. “That happens here?”

“Sometimes. Not for long, so our parents don’t find out. Anyway, we let them get it in their heads that we could possibly be hooking up, and now they mostly leave us alone.”

Eddie smiles at that. It’s a smart plan, even if it’s ridiculous that they had to resort to it. 

“How many roommates have you had?”

“You’re number six,” Stanley says. “And the second Eddie, actually.”

“What happened to the others?”

Stanley scrunches his face up. “Eddie One's parents pulled him out. Reginald got moved to a different room because he would hit me. Vic...hanged himself in the woods. The other two got cured and sent home.”

“Cured? This place has cured people?” He gets the feeling he’s not supposed to ask about the boy who hanged himself.

“No,” Bev says sharply. “It’s not a cure. It doesn’t change anything for us, just for them. They’re all still gay, they’ve just been scared out of ever acting on it. And for them, it’s out of sight, out of mind. We live with our trauma, but we do it quietly, and they forget about it. Boom. Cured.”

“The cure is being ashamed that you’re not cured,” Stanley continues. “When they tell you it doesn’t work unless you want it to, they mean that.”

Eddie wants to ask more questions, but the bell rings again (and makes him wince again, he has no idea how he’s ever going to get used to that) and they get up to dump their trays on a rack. Two girls, Betty and Audra, are on washing up duty, so Eddie and Stanley are shuffled straight off to group therapy whilst Bev has free time.

She leaves them to walk back to her cabin, and Stanley and Eddie are alone in one of the lengthy corridors of the main house when it happens.

“Kaspbrak?” Fucking hell, he’d know that voice anywhere.

“Henry Bowers,” he sighs. “You’re here too?”

Eddie recalls his mother mentioning a family friend with a son there. He should have put the pieces together sooner, he realises miserably.

“Should have known you were a fag,” Bowers snarls at him.

“You’re  _ also here _ , Henry,” Stanley snaps. “I don’t think you have the high ground.”

Bowers lunges, and for a moment, Eddie thinks he’s going to go for Stanley, who looks like he wouldn’t survive a strong breeze, but before he can react, he’s slammed up against the wall and there are black spots dancing in his vision. He hasn’t eaten enough in the last few days to fight back. 

“Hey!” Stanley shouts. “Get off him!”

“Stay out of it, Uris, or I’ll tell him what you did, I swear! How’s he gonna like you after that?”

“Shut up,” Stanley says coldly, but he’s suddenly stopped trying to fight back. 

“Listen here, Kaspbrak,” Bowers growls, yanking his head back by his hair so he’s forced to make eye contact through watering eyes. “I’m no homo. I don’t care who you fucked to get sent here, but we have nothing to do with each other, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie chokes, too frightened to say anything else. “I won’t come near you.”

“Bet it was Tozier,” Bowers says, then lets go of him so he drops against the wall, gasping. “Little freak.” 

He turns and starts walking away, and Eddie, suddenly awash in an intense desire to defend Richie’s honour, makes to swing at his back. 

Before he can do anything, Stanley grabs his wrist, gentle but unshakable, and whispers, “Just leave it. Eddie, calm down.”

“He doesn’t get to talk like that!” Eddie cries, wriggling in Stanley’s grip. “He doesn’t know shit!”

“He does know shit about me,” Stanley sighs. “Or I’d let you hit him.”

“Can’t we tell someone?”

Stanley frowns. “The staff won’t do anything. The sooner you learn that they’re not actually here to help us, the better.”

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes.

“Yeah,” Stanley replies. “Don’t say anything. We should go to group therapy, okay?”

He doesn’t allow any room for questions about what Bowers had meant when he spoke to him. Eddie doesn’t push it, just trails after him to group therapy.

*

Group therapy sucks.

“I think my mother allowed me to be too feminine,” says one of the boys across the circle from Eddie, as he shifts uncomfortably in his chair and wonders if his own mother did the same, if he was born waiting to kiss Richie, or if there was another path he could ever have taken. “Perhaps I internalised that.”

“That’s an interesting thought,” the man leading their group says. His name might be Robert, Eddie wasn’t really paying attention. “How about you, Eddie?”

Eddie blinks at him.

“We like our new members to try and say a bit in their first sessions,” Maybe-Robert says. “Would you like to tell us why you’re here?”

Stanley, who’s been staring at the floor for the entire session so far, raises his eyes to give him the tiniest of sympathetic glances.

Bowers smiles without any hint of kindness. He’s going to get a kick out of this, Eddie thinks sickly.

“Um,” he says, scuffing his foot along the floor. “My friend kissed me. And my mom walked in.”

There’s a muffled giggle somewhere to his right. Stanley’s face stays carefully blank.

“He kissed you?” Maybe-Robert says. “You didn’t initiate anything?”

“I guess,” he replies, cursing his complete inability to deliberately disappoint an adult. “It happened really fast.”

“So you were assaulted, Eddie?”

“No!” Eddie snaps before he can think. “No, Richie would never!” It feels wrong to say it. Richie’s name doesn’t belong in a place like this, among people like this.

Robert’s face settles into a slight frown. “Well, you think on that for us, okay Eddie?” The man says his name a lot. He thinks it’s probably a tactic to make him more comfortable. It’s not working.

He nods distractedly, listens to the conversation continue. Someone talks about how they were only friends with girls back in their hometown, another says that his father was distant. It’s depressing as all fuck to listen to, but his mind keeps drifting back to Richie. He’s angry right down to the bone that anyone could think Richie would ever do anything to hurt him. Richie may be the only person who ever actually treats him like a real person, but he’s gentle every time he hurts him and if he ever isn’t, he takes it surprisingly hard.

_ The accident that broke his arm had technically been Richie’s fault.  _

_ It was the summer they were thirteen, and Richie had got it into his head that he was going to skateboard professionally. As such, he was dragging Eddie into the street constantly to be his assistant.  _

_ “Rich, it’s so fucking hot,” he had complained, sitting on the side of the road, the hot tarmac burning red patterns into his legs. “Can we go inside?” _

_ “I need a witness, Eds,” Richie had told him earnestly. “Mike’s busy at the farm, and Ben has summer school, poor fucker.” They had been fighting with Bill for some now hazy reason, or maybe just Eddie had been fighting with him and Richie had stalwartly declared him his enemy too in solidarity. At the time, it had seemed like the most important thing in the world. _

_ “Did you put suntan lotion on?” _

_ “Not as much as you did, dude,” Richie had replied, kicking his skateboard around inelegantly in a gesture he probably thought looked cool. “You look like you rolled in it.” _

_ “Shut up,” he had said without much conviction. “I’m just trying to help, y’know.” _

_ “So help like this!” Richie had cried, and attempted some kind of jump-flip thing.  _

_ “You’re doing that wrong,” Eddie had called to him. He hadn’t admitted it, but he’d read a few pieces about skateboarding since Richie had clumsily dragged his new purchase into the clubhouse last week.  _

_ “Show me how it’s done then,” Richie had said back, and beckoned him over. “Come on, on you get.” _

_ Eddie had huffed, putting one foot up on the skateboard. He had no intention of actually doing anything, he could trip over his own feet if he wasn’t paying attention, but Richie always found it funny when he played along. _

_ Before he could do anything, Richie had stomped on the other end of the skateboard with a sharp cry of laughter and Eddie had flown forward with his legs stolen out from under him and landed on his arm with a sickening crunch. _

_ Richie’s laugh had cut off quickly, probably realising something was wrong when Eddie had immediately launched into a cacophony of swearing. _

_ “Eddie! Shit, are you okay?” _

_ Eddie had laid face-down in the road, little fragments of tarmac stuck to his face, feeling pain radiate through his arm, not replying for a moment whilst he rode the waves of anger at Richie for fucking with him again. _

_ “Fuck you, Richie,” he had hissed into the ground. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.” _

_ “Eddie. Eds, get up, come on. You can be mad, just let me see if you hit your head.” _

_ Eddie had rolled over, squinting up at the bright midday sun, and Richie had gasped as if he felt all the pain himself. _

_ “Oh god Eddie, your arm. Fuck!” _

_ “Is it broken?” Eddie had whispered, wanting to be mad, but wanting his comfort more. “I’m gonna kill you. And my mom’s gonna kill me.” _

_ “I’ll tell her it’s my fault,” Richie had said immediately. “It  _ ** _is _ ** _ my fault. Eddie, I’m so sorry, I think it’s broken.” He had been talking in a low, urgent voice, and there had been tears glittering in his eyes. _

_ “Ow,” Eddie had muttered, his voice finally cracking. _

_ Richie had taken his other hand, squeezed it, and scooped him up a little ungracefully off the road despite his protests. _

_ “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he had told him when he put him down on the sidewalk. “I was just messing about.” _

_ “I know.” Eddie had huffed, glaring all the same. _

_ “Are you mad?” He had sounded like a kicked puppy. _

_ “Can you stop freaking out and get me to the hospital?” _

_ “Right. But-” Richie had broken off and stared at him slightly pathetically. _

_ “I’ll be more mad if you leave me out here in a hundred-degree weather!” _

_ “Point taken,” Richie had said, and momentarily dropped his head so that his nose had rested in Eddie’s hair. “We can go now. I’m really sorry again.” _

* * *

When Richie remembers the day he broke Eddie’s arm, it’s always with a crushing sense of guilt accompanying it. In retrospect, he’s not sure what he thought was going to happen if he sent Eddie flying, but it always made him smile to not be treated like a glass boy. Unfortunately, sometimes his mother was right about things. She had made that very clear when she’d crashed into Eddie’s room at the hospital, shouting about irresponsibility and fragility. Eddie, to his credit, had done his best to soften the blow of the true story, but he’d still had to sneak around when he was seeing Eddie for weeks after that.

He’s thinking about this as he’s sitting at the breakfast bar in Bill’s kitchen the next morning. It’s early, but the sun is up and he’s barely slept anyway. Bill had called Mike and Ben practically at the crack of dawn and they, being far better friends than Richie thinks he deserves, are already on their way over to talk despite having absolutely no idea what’s going on.

When they arrive, in Mike’s grandfather’s farm truck, they’re both laughing about something and Ben has a bag from the little bakery in town.

“We stopped to get everyone breakfast,” Mike says as he hops down from the driver’s seat. “Richie, you like pain au chocolats, right? Ben said you did, but I thought he might just be trying to get more for himself.”

“I was not!” Ben says indignantly. “He ate one like, last week!”

“I’m not hungry,” Richie snaps, then feels guilty again at Ben’s frown. “Sorry. I do like them.”

Ben doesn’t reply straight away, his eyes scanning Richie and Bill’s pale and tired faces, then clearly noticing the absence that Richie feels like a missing limb.

“Where’s Eddie?” Ben asks, eyebrows knitting together. “Guys, what’s wrong?”

“His mom?” Mike says immediately. “Did she do something?” Mike’s always had a superpower for figuring out what’s wrong with any of them at the slightest expression. Richie calls him the group psychic.

“We don’t know,” Bill says. “B-but he’s gone. We need to figure out wuh-where.”

“His stuff is gone. So’s his mom’s car.” Richie finally stands to the side to allow Ben and Mike into the house. 

Bill’s eyes flicker to him, clearly checking if he’s going to explain the rest of the story. He’s giving Richie the space to decide, but he can tell that Bill thinks they need to explain.

“There’s something else,” he says slowly, and Ben and Mike look at him curiously. “I kissed Eddie, and his mom walked in.”

Ben and Mike stare at him for a minute. His hands are shaking. God, coming out is exhausting, even when he knows they’ll be fine with it. He can’t imagine how Eddie felt in his mother’s house every single day.

Ben puts a little paper bag from the bakery in his hands. Richie can feel the warmth radiating through it.

“Eat,” he says simply. “You should.”

“Don’t blame yourself, Richie,” Mike tells him gently, and Bill nods along. “It’s his mom. Not you.”

“Right,” Richie nods vaguely, feeling only faintly reassured. “But we still need to do something.”

“Obviously.” Mike sits down at the breakfast bar, folds his hands in front of him like he’s in a meeting. “What do we know?”

Ben sits next to him, all wide worried eyes and pursed lips. “When did all this happen?”

“Yesterday,” Richie explains. “We were hanging out in his room, just chatting and I- y’know. And I guess his mom woke up from her nap, but I didn’t hear her, and she walked in.”

“Shit,” Mike mutters. “I can’t imagine her taking that well.”

“She didn’t,” Richie says glumly. “I went back a few minutes later, she’d locked him in his room. He looked terrified.”

“I huh-hate her,” Bill spits out. He’s picking at a croissant, little flakes of pastry sticking to his fingers. Very little seems to be making it to his mouth. “Poor Eddie.”

“Yep,” Richie says. “I went back later and the car was gone. Lights off, curtains drawn downstairs, and his inhaler and pills were all gone from his room.”

“So let’s go back,” Mike says suddenly. “How far can they have gone? Eddie’s aunt is in New Hampshire, and she’s the only one who’ll talk to his mother.”

“How do you know that?” Richie frowns. He’s sure he knew that Eddie had an aunt in New Hampshire, and it’s common sense that most of the family has cut Sonia off, but it hadn’t struck him in the hours since Eddie vanished, and Mike has landed on it in a few minutes.

“We talk about family a lot,” Mike shrugs. “Dead dads, you know?”

“Oh,” Richie says, a little surprised. It’s news to him that Eddie has ever talked to anyone about his father’s death. “That makes sense.”

“Are we going down there?” Ben asks. “He might be back, y’know. Maybe she just drove him around a bit to yell at him, or they stayed at his aunt’s for a bit.”

“I have to get Georgie up at 8,” Bill frowns. “Can we wuh-wait?”

“Why’s that your job?” Richie says. “Your parents are here.”

“I have to be muh-more ruh-responsible, they said.” Bill puts his half-eaten breakfast on the side and huffs out a sigh. “Or he’ll get taken for real.”

Richie catches Ben and Mike share a concerned glance. It  _ is  _ weird, and any other time, they’d probably all sit Bill down for a proper conversation about what’s going on, but Eddie has to take priority right now.

He can’t really deny to himself that Eddie will always take priority, as long as he’s in trouble that Richie threw him into by kissing him.

At exactly 8:30am, when Georgie is up, has been made cereal, and is watching cartoons in their living room, Mike ushers them all into his truck to drive to Eddie’s house. Richie normally calls it a rusty deathtrap, even though it seats seven and has sped him out of some ridiculous situations, but today he’s silent in the backseat.

Eddie’s house is still silent and empty. It looks exactly as it had last night, and somehow even more eerie in the sunshine, sticking out as something terribly wrong on an otherwise lovely day. 

“No one’s home,” Ben says miserably. “I really thought he’d be here.”

“Okay,” Mike says, chewing his lip. “I think Richie’s right. Something’s happened.”

“What if she hurt him?” Richie groans, feeling panic rise in his chest. “What if she did something, and she had to cover it up?” He’s watched true crime documentaries, probably far too many, and now he can’t stop imagining Sonia hitting him too hard, or choking him in a fit of rage, carrying his body out to the car easily because he’s so small and light, leaving him somewhere isolated and dirty that gets far too dark when the sun sets.

Bill is clearly thinking the same thing, his eyes wide in his white face. He’s drumming his fingers on the dashboard, the pattern getting faster and faster each time.

“I’m sure that’s not the case,” Mike says, and his voice is so calm and steady that Richie can’t even tell if he’s lying. “You know what? I’m willing to bet he’s just with his aunt, okay?”

“So we drive there,” Richie cuts in urgently. “We drive there, and we check, and if he is there, we rescue him from that psychotic bitch.”

“Richie, come on,” Ben says gently. “We don’t know where she lives. We can’t do a journey like that if we’re not even sure he’ll be there. And his aunt probably won’t appreciate us showing up.”

“We have to do something,” Richie whispers. “We can’t just go home.”

“We go in,” Bill says suddenly. “We all know how to buh-break into Eddie’s house, come on. There’s got to be suh-something.”

“We can’t just break into someone’s house!” Mike says incredulously. “What if someone calls the cops?”

“We’ll be fine,” Richie says, already undoing his seatbelt.

“ _ You _ will,” Mike says. “I’m the only black kid in this town. You think I can afford to break and enter?”

“Sorry, Mike,” Richie says quietly, because he’s right and he knows it. “You wanna hang out in the truck?”

“I keep a book in here,” Mike says, smiling again to let Richie know it’s fine. “I’ll wait. We should probably have a lookout anyway, in case someone comes here. You go find out where our Eddie is, yeah?”

Richie nods, scrambles down from the truck and waits for Bill and Ben. When they get out, the three of them circle around to the back of the house to the kitchen window with a faulty lock.

“Richie, you scrawny motherfucker,” Ben says. “You’re up.”

Bill gives him a leg up, and he wrenches the lock, up then down then push  _ hard,  _ he remembers, and it pops open. He clumsily wriggles through, then he’s standing in Eddie’s dark kitchen. Just last week, he had been in here making cookies for Ben’s birthday, and they had been dancing to the music on the radio. It feels forever ago.

He finds the key on the windowsill and unlocks the back door, letting Bill and Ben in. Ben switches on the light, and they all stand in the middle of the empty room.

“What are we looking for?” Ben asks.

“Anything. Richie, check his ruh-room,” Bill says. “I’ll check his mom’s. Ben, start down here.”

Richie’s glad he got assigned Eddie’s room. He wants to be among the familiar right now. And Eddie’s room is indeed just as familiar as it was yesterday. His bedside table is bare, a stark reminder that he’s gone, but the comics are still on the shelves and his laundry basket is still full of clothes. At the top is the yellow t-shirt he was wearing a few days ago, still with mud on the sleeve where Richie had thrown dirt at him.

Eddie’s room is small enough that the only place to really check is the closet (the irony of this does not escape him) and he carefully opens the door to examine Eddie’s stuff.

The first thing that he notices is that some of the hangers are empty. Eddie has taken clothes with him. It sends a little wave of relief through him. Clothes wouldn’t be missing if something had happened to him.

Something sitting at the bottom under the clothes catches his attention. It’s a small pile of books. Why would Eddie keep books in his closet?

When he gently picks them up, it’s clear.

A skateboarding tips book. The receipt in it is dated 1990, the summer Richie was learning to skate. A joke book, no receipt, but it’s clearly older, read many times. At the top is a book that looks new, shiny cover, no bends in the spine. The cover advertises that it can teach you any accent in the world.

Tucked inside the cover is a red envelope, with  _ RICHIE _ written in felt tip on the front. It must be his birthday present, he realises. Eddie has bought it way in advance. It makes him feel guilty that he’s ruining his surprise.

He sits with it for a moment, tears welling in his eyes, before putting it back where he found it. Eddie doesn’t need to know he’s seen it. When he’s back, he’ll let him give it to him properly.

There’s nothing else to see here, and hanging out with Eddie’s ghost is starting to make him feel a bit weird, so he heads back downstairs. Bill is already down there, sifting through papers and talking to Ben in a low voice.

“Richie,” Ben says when he sees him. “Find anything?”

“Some of his clothes are gone,” Richie tells them. “He must have packed a bag.”

“That’s guh-good,” Bill says. “He was okay when he left, then.”

“Okay-ish,” Richie corrects. “He was really shaken up.”

“Okay-ish will do,” Bill replies. “Ben found something.”

“His aunt’s address,” Ben holds up a piece of paper. “It was out by the phone, along with the hours she works. Sonia must have called her recently.”

“That’s gotta be where he is,” Richie says. “She must just be trying to keep him away from me.”

“Seems likely,” Bill says miserably. “How long can he stay gone? They can’t just up and leave, right?”

“He’ll have to be back for school at the latest,” Ben agrees. “And they haven’t packed much at all.”

“Barely any of his mom’s stuff is muh-missing,” Bill says. “One or two hangers empty, that’s it.”

“Loads of Eddie’s stuff was gone,” Richie frowns. “He was packing for longer.”

“Maybe he’s running away?” Ben suggests. “He could have fled the car outside Derry.”

“Nuh uh,” Richie shakes his head. “Not Eddie.”

“I agree,” Bill says. “Eddie won’t even come on hikes.”

“Let’s go and tell Mike, okay?” Ben says. “We shouldn’t stay in here.”

They leave back out through the back door, then drop the key back through the open window and pull it shut before returning to Mike.

Ben takes the front seat to show Mike what they’ve found, and Richie rests idly on Bill’s shoulder as they talk, feeling totally drained. He wonders if Bill reads something different into it now that he knows he’s gay, if he’s secretly disgusted by the contact, but he doesn’t move away, just shifts his arm slightly to make Richie more comfortable.

He thinks Bill is probably really upset. Eddie has been a fixture at the Denbrough house for longer than most of their furniture, and there’s no way he’s taking this vanishing well. It would be nice if he could make it better, but he can’t fight past the chaos in his own head to try and settle Bill’s.

“Okay,” Mike says eventually. “We can drive to his aunt’s house in about two or three hours. It’s not that far.”

“What?” Richie sits up. “You’ll actually drive us?”

Mike sighs. “My grandpa doesn’t need the truck today. And we all love Eddie, Richie. We can check he’s okay, maybe sneak a conversation. He probably needs it.”

Tears rise up in his eyes again. “Thanks, Mike.”

“Hey,” Mike says. “One for all, and all for one, yeah?”

He starts the engine, and Richie listens to the low rumble of the truck as he leans back into Bill’s shoulder and thinks of Eddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! i appreciate every single comment, especially those of you coming back every single chapter! it means a lot. also, i've moved my It content to a sideblog so i stop losing followers on my main, so now-
> 
> tumblr:grumpystan
> 
> see you next time!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie gets accustomed, Bev steps up, and Richie sees red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 5! thank you to everyone who offered kind words (and a playlist!) last chapter, and especially to the people who had my back both in the comments and in private. i truly appreciate you for jumping in when you didn't have to at all. 
> 
> warnings for this chapter: withdrawal symptoms, more therapy, slurs

Sometime after the conference ends, Eddie starts to feel  _ bad.  _

He’s sitting on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, stomach feeling like someone is squeezing it in their fist, and he’s missing his friends like hell. 

“Richie is terrible when I’m sick,” he mumbles to Stanley, who is perched on the edge of the sink, looking faintly alarmed. “He’s like a dog, he just stares at me across the room, all sad.”

Stanley smiles wanly.

“My friends Mike and Ben were good though,” he says, suddenly desperate to tell him all about them. “They always look after me.” 

Another wave of nausea rises up, and he leans his head against the wall, too exhausted to continue. Stanley doesn’t speak, but Eddie hears the gentle thud of his swinging feet hitting the edge of the sink.

“I wish they were here,” he whispers eventually. “Or I wish I was with them. I don’t think I’d wish here on anyone.”

“No,” Stanley says quietly. “Me neither. I’m sure you’ll see your friends soon.”

“When they cure me?”

“Stop saying that,” he says, and Eddie can practically hear the eye roll. “At least you have friends to go back to.”

“Mhm,” Eddie replies. “I’m sorry, Stanley.”

“Don’t be. You’re the best roommate I’ve had since Eddie One.”

“I’ve only been here a day.” Eddie opens his eyes to look at Stanley, who has that glazed, melancholy look in his eyes again. “Were the others that bad?”

“Maybe it was a me problem,” Stanley says, a hint of agitation slipping into his voice. “I don’t think you’re supposed to speak ill of the dead anyway.”

“What does Bev think?”

“She says they all suck.” Stanley smiles. It’s genuine, but it looks wrong on his face. “She wants to wrap me up in bubble wrap and keep me in a cave.”

Eddie laughs weakly. “I think that’s what Bill thinks of me.”

“We wouldn’t need much bubble wrap for you,” Stanley teases gently. “You’re so small.”

“Shut up,” he says. There’s something reassuring about someone teasing him here. As if it’s not all so awful that they can’t find something to laugh about. “God, I feel fucking awful. Have they ever poisoned people here? I mean, I wouldn’t put it past them, ‘cause you said they starved you, and-” 

“They haven’t poisoned you,” Stanley says, sounding reassuringly certain. 

“Are you sure? Because I’ve read about these places, and I know they do all kinds of fucked up shit.” He’s talking fast again, which he knows happens when something gets him going about health. Hopefully Stanley won’t find it too annoying.

“I promise they haven’t poisoned you,” Stanley repeats, sounding a tiny bit irritated. Then, after a pause, he speaks again, his voice softer. “Richie’s why you’re here, isn’t he?”

“He didn’t assault me,” Eddie says quickly. “He really didn’t. I wanted him to-”

“They pull that card a lot,” Stanley says. “It works sometimes.”

“Did they try that with you?” Eddie asks, making the decision to hoist himself up off the ground and head back to sit on his bed.

“Well, no one kissed me,” Stanley replies, climbing down from the sink. “They pull the religion card more often with me. It’s like, my dad’s the rabbi, I’ve heard it all before.”

“He sent you here just for thinking about boys?”

“It’s a bad look in my town, with my dad’s job. You have to practice what you preach.” Stanley lies down flat on his bed, closes his eyes. “I don’t mind. Bev’s a better friend than anyone back home.”

“How can you not mind?!” Eddie says, incredulous.

“Do you want to go home?” Stanley opens one eye to look at him. “I know I’ve barely heard the story, but your mom doesn’t sound like a barrel of laughs.”

“I want my friends,” Eddie tells him, and his voice wobbles embarrassingly. “It was always okay if I had them.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Stanley says, voice sympathetic. “The first few days are never easy. But if your mom’s as overprotective as you say, I bet she pulls you out real soon.”

“Maybe,” Eddie says quietly, lacing his shaky fingers together on his chest. “You’ve really been here for months?”

“Well, I wasn’t  _ lying.  _ Yeah, it’s been a while. But once you learn to tune the nonsense out, the routine is weirdly comforting. We get meals at the same time every day, we go to bed at the same time, and they say the same shit.”

Eddie looks at Stanley and thinks that he might be a little more brainwashed than he had realised. He acts bored and above it all, but something here has wormed its way into his head and he’s forgotten the awful truth of it all.

Either that or he’s come from somewhere so terrible that this place really is better. He decides not to ask.

“So Henry Bowers,” Stanley says after an uncomfortable silence where they’re probably both contemplating what he’s just said. “You know him?”

“He went to my school,” Eddie tells him. “Until a few months ago. I’d kinda forgotten he existed.”

“Lucky you,” Stanley says, smiling a little. “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“He threw my inhaler off a bridge one time.” Eddie remembers that day clearly. Bill had tried to punch him in the throat for it. “And he nearly fucking killed Ben. Literally carved letters into his skin.”

“That’s  _ your  _ Ben?!” Stanley sits up. “Shit, he used to gloat about that all the time.”

“That’s my Ben,” Eddie says, and it’s weirdly comforting to think that Stanley has heard his friend’s name before, that this little link exists between them. “I guess he hasn’t changed then.”

“He was worse before,” Stanley says, and when he shrugs, Eddie can see his ribs through his shirt. “He’s been quiet lately, I guess. Until you got here.”

“What’s his deal with you, anyway?” It feels like a dangerous question, but it’s something that’s been weighing on him, and feeling this sick isn’t doing anything for his already poor impulse control.

“He hates me,” Stanley says darkly. “Not in the way he hates you and your friends. Like, he actually properly hates me.”

“He’s just a dick, Stanley,” Eddie says, a little freaked out. “He doesn’t care who he bullies.”

“No, listen to me," Stanley says. "He's going to kill me one day. I mean it."

Eddie opens his mouth to reply, hoping the words will come to him by the time he starts speaking, that he can find out what Stanley means or at least comfort him somehow, but a knock at the door interrupts him.

Stanley flies back like he’s been doing something wrong, staring at the door with huge eyes and his thin frame tense as a wire. So much for it not being so bad here.

“Hi, boys,” Lisa says, her face like stone. “Eddie, if you’d like to come with me to individual counselling?”

“He’s not feeling well,” says Stanley immediately. “He’s been sick. And he’s got a headache.”

“I’ll talk to Eddie himself about that, thank you Stanley,” she says, and Stanley stares back, expression blank except for the slightest twitch under his eye. “Eddie, come on now.”

It’s not a question, so Eddie trails after her into the last of the evening sun, and catches Stanley bury his head in his hands as the door closes.

*

“Your mother sounded somewhat overbearing on the phone,” Lisa says, and Eddie, curled into an armchair in her office, stares without answering. “I imagine that’s not easy to live with.”

“No,” Eddie replies shortly, because god, as much as he would love to tell her exactly what living with his mother is like, he knows it’ll be turned around on him before he gets anything out of the confession. “She isn’t.”

“She also informed us of the medication you’ve been on, Eddie.” Lisa tents her fingers. “It’s really quite a lot, and most of it seems unnecessary.”

“Oh!” Eddie cries, coming to his senses suddenly as if he’s been half asleep for days. “I haven’t taken my pills in days!”

“We know,” she replies, her face still carefully impassive. “I’d like to propose a theory to you, Eddie.”

“That’s why I feel so ill,” he breathes, feeling the most clarity he’s felt in days. “Oh my god.”

“It’s temporary, kid,” she says, the kindness in her voice as manufactured as cotton candy. “You’ll feel much better soon. A lot of the pills you were on weren’t even real.”

“What?” Eddie’s head is spinning. “Not real?”

“A number of them were just sugar pills. Only a few, non-serious medications were real. Enough to produce some mild withdrawal symptoms, but nothing to worry about.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie says again.

“Here’s my theory, Eddie. You were stuck in your house with your mother all those years and you never got to meet any girls. Just boys at school. Your friend was your ticket to freedom. And with your pills dampening your feelings for girls, you got your feelings for him confused.”

He says nothing.

“You were lonely, and he was giving you companionship and freedom. I think you confused that for romantic feelings. Of course, he didn’t help that by kissing you. And if he already had romantic feelings for you, it’s no wonder you started feeling that way. Perhaps you thought you owed that to him after everything he did for you.”

His eyes are burning. He doesn’t want to say a word, doesn’t want to admit it, but she’s right that his mother had trapped him away from girls, that some of his medication warned of reduced sex drive (not initially a worry when he had started taking them at nine) and emotional numbness (a constant worry, but never around Richie). 

She’s wrong about Richie, though. He’s not a ticket to freedom, or a ticket to anything. He’s just Richie, and he’s not an escape, he’s just a boy who makes him laugh. He’s a hyperactive, overly emotional goofball with coke-bottle glasses and hair that can’t be tamed into any sort of style, and Eddie loves him on a knife edge between friendship and something more. It’s not a way out, it’s a way deeper in. 

He didn’t kiss him because he owed it to him. He kissed him because he owed it to himself, finally, to be honest, and now he’s paying the price. 

The world is so confusing that it hurts a little.

“Eddie, can you tell me what you think of that?”

“Uh,” Eddie says faintly. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” she says, sugar sweet. “There’s no rush to figure things out here. We just want to help you get better.”

“What if I don’t want that?” He’s irritated more than he is scared all of a sudden, and he can’t stop the words. “What if I just want to go home?”

“I know you’re new here Eddie, and that it can be hard, but I’m not appreciating your attitude,” Lisa says, her voice turning cold. “Please don’t speak like that. We’re offering you a service.”

He opens his mouth to say something he’ll surely regret, but before he can get a word out, there’s a wailing alarm so loud that he feels like his head is splitting open.

“Oh for-” Lisa looks exasperated. “We won’t have time to pick this up again once we’ve gone through all the protocol. We’ll talk again soon.”

Eddie just nods, thanking whatever god has seen fit to save him from another minute of this, and hurries back outside, where they check his name off on a register and tell him to go back to his room.

As it turns out, God is not responsible for this one.

“Hey, newbie!” Bev crows as soon as he sees her sitting on a tree stump at the fire assembly point, feet resting on Stanley’s. “Still gay?”

“Bev! Shush!” Stanley pops her gently in the back of the head. “Did she decide to call it a night, Eddie?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “Did you just set off the alarm?”

“Don’t tell.” Bev taps her nose, grinning. He thinks there might be a closed-over piercing there. “I came to get Stanley, he said you’d been dragged off for counselling. And  _ I  _ said that that was no good, ‘cause I wanted to talk to you.”

“Bev leads me down a dark path,” Stanley says, shaking his head. “How bad was it?”

Eddie crumples. He’s been doing what he thinks is an admirable job at swallowing back his feelings for the last few days, pretending to be taking each hit in his stride, but their kindness reminds him so much of his friends that he’s suddenly desperate to see them.

“That bad, huh?” Bev says, as Eddie presses a hand over his mouth to stop a sob from escaping. “Oh, newbie.”

She gets to her feet, wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. She’s a good deal taller than him, so he ends up squished into her shoulder, the faint scent of laundry detergent filling his nose.

Everyone else has cleared off now, so it’s just the three of them standing in the treeline. Bev is rubbing his back a bit whilst he cries, and Stanley is hovering near them, looking awkward enough that it would be funny if it wasn’t all so awful.

“Let’s walk,” Bev says. “Betty’s agreed not to say anything.”

She doesn’t wait for a response before slipping off into the trees, still visible in the dark by the bright white of her top.

“Individual Counselling is the worst,” she says to them as they trail behind her. “They’re gonna say a lot of stuff that makes things worse. God forbid you have any actual trauma.”

She’s quiet after that, and the sound of her footsteps is sort of stompy, so Eddie takes his cue from Stanley and just keeps kicking up the leaves.

“Thanks for pulling the alarm,” he says, voice still a little thick. “That was rough.”

“No problem,” Stanley replies. “You didn’t snitch on us, and you’ve been nice. And I think everyone needs someone here, or…” Stanley breaks off for a moment, lost in thought. “Or I don’t think you’d come out the other side.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly. “So we have each other’s backs.”

“Your enemies are our enemies,” Bev chips in. “But they were probably also our enemies anyway.”

“Henry Bowers?” Eddie asks.

“Fuck that guy!” Bev bellows into the sky, and all three of them crack up laughing. 

It’s a warm summer night, and the tears are still drying on his face, and he still feels sick, but for a few minutes, it’s not too painfully lonely.

* * *

Mike is a good driver, and there’s no one Richie would trust more behind the wheel (Eddie is five foot four of pure road rage), but every bump of their truck makes him feel sick. Ben has given him a plastic bag to be sick into, which is currently sitting open on his lap, and he’s starting to seriously think he might need it.

“How long?” Bill asks, bumping his shoes into the back of the driver’s seat.

“You sound like you’re my son,” Mike says. “‘Are we nearly there yet, Dad?’”

“I don’t see the resemblance,” Ben says. No one laughs.

“Not long,” Mike tells them. “Turns out she lives pretty close. I think she used to drag Eddie down there just for the day a lot.”

“He doesn’t talk about her much,” Richie says. “I don’t think they’re close or anything.”

“I definitely got the idea they’re not close,” Mike muses. “She certainly doesn’t come to Derry often.”

“Her number was all crumpled,” Ben adds. “She totally dug it out of a bin or something.”

“Fuck,” Richie sighs, dropping his head against the window and trying to remember the last time Eddie had been visiting his aunt.

_ “Merry Christmas, Eds!” Richie had bellowed the second Eddie had appeared in the clubhouse, jumping onto him and shoving a Santa hat over his head. It had been so big that it had fallen past his eyes, so only the tip of his nose and his small, scowling mouth was visible. “What did Santa bring you? Did you catch Mommy kissing him?” He had dropped back into the hammock, grinning at Eddie’s outraged expression. _

_ “Shut it, Rich,” Eddie had pulled the hat off and dumped it on the floor. _

_ “He’s been here less than a minute and he’s already told Richie to be quiet!” Mike had laughed, and Ben had rolled his eyes. _

_ “As if you guys d-didn’t,” Bill had chipped in. “Welcome buh-back, Eddie!” _

_ “Thank you, Bill,” Eddie had said, crossing the room to give him a hug. “God, I missed you this week.” _

_ Richie had felt oddly bitter when he had watched that. Eddie and Bill had known each other for so much longer than any of the rest of them, and sometimes their bond was so close that Richie felt a bit on the outs. It wasn’t often, he and Eddie had their own weird bond that went beyond most of the friendships they saw at school, boys who would punch each other and burn ants with a magnifying glass. _

_ “How was your aunt’s?” Ben had asked. _

_ “Awful. It sucked.” Eddie had dropped into the hammock right next to Richie, and Richie had turned his face back into his comic and tried to focus on the story instead of Eddie’s leg against his side. Eddie’s jeans, Richie’s hoodie, Richie’s shirt. Just three layers separating them from touching completely. He could feel the warmth even through them. _

_ “Aw, no,” Mike had said. “You know you’re always welcome at the farm.” _

_ “Or at mine,” Richie had said before his brain could catch up with him and think of something funny to say. “Like. If you want to.” _

_ Eddie had held his gaze for a moment, smiling. _

_ “Thanks, Mike and Richie,” he had said eventually. “Maybe next Christmas if my mother croaks it.” _

Richie wonders if Eddie might still want to take him up on that. He can’t imagine Eddie wants to spend Christmas, or even ten more seconds, with his mom right now.

He doesn’t want to let her within ten feet of him ever again.

Eddie might be fierce and funny and totally capable of looking after himself in almost every situation (Richie will literally never forget the time Eddie had keyed Patrick’s car for putting graffiti on his locker) but his mother seems able to put him in a bit of a trance every time shit gets bad. He can’t stand seeing Eddie that way.

This is why his heart is racing when they finally pull up at a little house near the end of a narrow street.

“I don’t see their car,” Mike frowns, and Richie sees the first tells of genuine concern in his face. “Maybe she parked further away?”

“Why?” Ben says. “There’s no car in the driveway anyway, she could park here.”

Richie clenches his fists so hard that his knuckles turn white. His whole body is trembling. 

Bill hops out of the truck, starts walking up the driveway.

“Oh my god,” Ben sighs. “Bill, don’t knock! We need to- oh for god’s sake.” He drops his head onto the dashboard.

Bill isn’t knocking. He’s stopped in the middle of the driveway, staring at something at his feet.

“What the hell is he doing?” Mike asks, leaning his head out of the window. “Bill!”

Bill crouches on the ground, touches something. 

“Okay, we’re already here, I guess,” Mike says tiredly, and opens his door to follow Bill’s lead. “What is it?”

Ben turns to give Richie a slightly concerned look, then they both follow him out as well.

“Look,” Bill says, guiding them over with a crooked finger like he’s in a detective show. Richie kind of wants to make fun of him. “Are these Eddie’s?”

Richie’s heart is in his throat. There are a few pills scattered on the driveway and into the grass, some partly crushed, others intact. He recognises the colours and the shapes as Eddie’s as easily as he knows his face. 

“Uh, yeah,” Ben says. “These are his, I know them.”

Richie stumbles to his feet, heart racing. Eddie had seemed gone without a trace, but he’s still somewhere, leaving pills like breadcrumbs, and Richie can’t imagine how they ended up scattered over the driveway.

He’s walking almost before he realises.

“Richie,” Bill says. “Ruh-Richie, Richie,  _ no. _ ”

He knocks on the door.

“Oh my god,” Mike whispers. “Everyone get up!”

The other three scramble up from the ground and assemble themselves somewhat appropriately behind Richie just as a woman opens the door.

She’s very clearly related to Sonia, with dark eyes and an intense, distrusting stare. Richie searches her face for any resemblance to Eddie, sees nothing. It's almost disappointing. He had been hoping to see an echo of Eddie in her face, a reminder of the bend of his nose or the way he holds himself. There's nothing of him here. No trace but the pills in the driveway. And if he has been here, this woman does not inspire any confidence in a safe and happy home.

He can’t speak all of a sudden, so Ben takes over.

“Ma’am,” he says, ever the charming young man. “Is Eddie Kaspbrak your nephew?”

This is why he's always the one to handle parents when they get themselves into trouble. Ben is sweet and well-spoken, with just the right balance of an anxious need to please and an unshakeable self-assurance that he tends to get them all right out of the consequences.

“Yeah,” she says, and her breath smells like alcohol. “What about him?”

“Is he here?” Ben presses. “Or was he?”

“Uh huh,” she sniffs. “My sister brought him down for the night. She’s coming back later. You’re his little friends?”

“Only her?” Richie cuts in before Ben can speak. “Eddie’s not with her?”

“She took him to the airport,” she shrugs, and Richie feels very very cold. “Didn’t say where he was flying to. Confidential, apparently.”

“Oh my god,” Richie whispers, and Bill puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it. His fingers are trembling. “To the airport?”

Ben is starting to look a bit white, and he’s not saying anything, so Mike steps in.

“Do you know  _ anything  _ else?” Mike asks, voice carefully measured like he’s trying to keep everything under control.

“Why should I tell you?” Eddie’s aunt asks. “You’re some random kids on my doorstep.”

“ _ Please _ ,” Richie bursts out, and a few tears escape and roll down his cheeks. 

She looks at him like he’s crazy without an ounce of sympathy.

“Look, we’re just worried,” Mike says. “Anything you can tell us to...put our minds at ease?”

“Fine,” she sighs heavily, and Richie flinches at the smell of her breath. “Sonia was mad. Said she was sending him out of state to some place her friend’s kid was. Said he was a little queer.”

Richie sees red.

“Fuck you!” He shouts through tears, and then Mike and Ben have hands on his shoulders and are pulling him backwards. “Don’t talk about him like that! Don’t you fucking-”

“Richie!” Ben says, surprisingly sharp. “Richie, it’s okay, just get in the truck.”

Bill is standing by the door still, heels of his hands pressed to his forehead, eyes red. Mike is trying to ease his arms down, speaking in low tones that Richie can’t hear past the blood rushing in his ears.

“Get off my property,” Eddie’s aunt says coldly. “Or I call the cops in two minutes.”

“We’re going,” Ben says quickly, and drags Richie by the wrist to the truck, practically shoving him in. “Richie, come on, just get in.”

“I-” Richie starts desperately, with no idea what he actually wants to say.

“I know. We’ll figure it out.”

The next few moments are a blur, and then they’re driving again, Mike gripping the wheel far too hard and Ben collapsed in the seat next to him.

Bill isn’t crying anymore. He’s chewing his lip, face pale, and staring at the back of Ben’s seat. He looks as small and ghost-like as Eddie had when his mother had kicked Richie out and turned on him like a hurricane. Richie squishes in next to him, wanting to feel close, hoping it'll ward off the monsters in his mind.

“What now?” Ben asks eventually, his voice small. He's playing with the hem of his shirt, which Richie knows he does when he's anxious. "How do we find out where he went?"

“I have no idea,” Mike sighs. “But we know he’s okay. And he’s in the States somewhere. We can figure this out, alright?”

“How?” Bill whispers. “Where the hell do we go from here? Do you know how fucking buh-big America is?”

“I know, Bill,” Mike says patiently, and Richie detects the tremble in his voice this time. “But there has to be a way to narrow it down. And maybe Eddie will contact us.”

“He’s not with his mom anymore,” Ben points out, slightly hopeful. “Maybe he’ll be able to reach out.”

“We can’t just wait for him to reach out!” Richie snaps. “He’s the one who’s gone missing, we can’t sit around and twiddle our fucking thumbs waiting for him to do all the work!”

“That’s not what Ben said,” Mike says firmly. “Calm down, Richie.”

“How are you not all freaking out?!” Richie cries. “Eddie’s fucking gone!” 

It's pissing him off all of a sudden. He feels like he's the only person seeing how insane this all is, how serious it is that Eddie's been caught being something his mother hates, that he's been sent away alone. It doesn't make sense to him that they can't all feel Eddie's absence like someone has scooped their hearts right out of their chests with no warning. He wants to know how they can sit still, focus their minds, theorise about where Eddie might be without impulsively following him straight there.

“Of course we’re freaking out,” Mike raises a hand, trying to placate him. “But we need to come up with a plan.”

“We go back to Derry first,” Richie manages. “We wait for Sonia. Or we break in again. She has to have left a trace, we can figure out where he is.”

“Right,” Ben says, sounding unsure. He knows that Ben wants to do whatever he can, but he thinks more practically than Richie. He's probably counting up problems and obstacles in his head.

“This is my fault,” Richie half shouts. “I did this! Let me put it right!” The terrible truth rises out of him again, slams into him like a wave. He doesn't know what to do with all these feelings Eddie keeps making him feel.

It doesn't seem fair that Eddie can kiss him back and make him different, and then go away. If he's going to change Richie's world, he thinks, he should be able to stay in it.

“Richie, it’s not your fault,” Mike says, and Bill reaches over and takes Richie’s hand in his own. “You have to stop blaming yourself!”

“I don’t know how,” Richie admits, and runs his free hand through his tangled hair. “Promise me you’ll be with me. Promise me we’ll find him.”

“Of course we wuh-will,” Bill says, his mouth setting into a thin, serious line. “Promise.”

Ben turns in his seat, offers Richie a shaky but sincere smile, and a firm nod. Mike, ever the responsible driver, doesn't turn, but he nods, and Richie sees his eyes are shining in the rearview mirror.

“Good,” Richie says shakily, swallowing back his panic for Eddie. It’s all for Eddie. “Let’s get to work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! things will start to actually happen soon, i promise. as always, comments and kudos warm the soul and if you want to talk to me about this fic, or It in general, i'm on tumblr at grumpystan!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan, hollow comfort, and a break in the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 6! we're gonna start picking up the pace soon, we've just got a few more little pieces to lay down.
> 
> warnings for this chapter are the same as usual + some violence and neglect

The drive back to Derry is horrible. Richie is so silent in the back seat that Ben keeps turning to look at him every time he speaks himself, waiting for a loud, trashy response.

It’s early evening when they arrive back in town, and the orange sky illuminates the truck in a soft glow. Everything is soft and beautiful, and it’s all wrong because Eddie isn’t here to see it.

“I can drop you all home,” Mike says quietly. “Ben, my grandpa made some meals for your mom to keep in the fridge if you want to pick those up.”

Richie knows he’s looking for a distraction, something easy to fix to focus on instead of this monumental, unimaginable problem. Ben’s mom spending most of the day mooning over pictures of her dead husband and making ready meals at best is a manageable burden. It comes in occasional episodes, passes soon enough, and they know exactly how to deal with it.

They have no idea what to do about Eddie. In the end, they just agree to meet again tomorrow and try and talk through it. It seems like too long to wait, but Mike says he’s not driving them anywhere else until they’ve slept, and they all agree that they can’t vanish on their families.

The first house they arrive at is Bill’s and Richie’s heart sinks when he sees Sharon Denbrough open the front door and storm out into the street.

“Bill!” Mrs Denbrough exclaims. “Where the hell have you been?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Richie sees Georgie appear in the doorway, watching them with a mournful expression.

“Sorry if we worried you, Mrs Denbrough,” Ben says calmly. “We were-“

“Worried?” Mrs Denbrough says incredulously, and Richie winces. “Bill, for god’s sake, you were supposed to pick Georgie up from swimming.”

“I’m suh- I’m-“ Bill is clearly struggling to get the words out in his panic, even though it’s painfully obvious what he’s trying to say. “I f-forgot, I-“

“He was standing outside, Bill! How could you take that chance? What would you have done if somebody snatched him off the street?”

“I can’t do everything, mom!” Bill shouts suddenly, voice surprisingly steady. “You could have picked him up!” His lip is trembling.

“Bill!”

“Eddie’s muh-missing,” Bill continues, eyes bright and glossy. “I just wuh-wanted to help.”

“Go inside,” she sighs, seeming less angry now and more like Bill is a dog being told off. “We can talk about that in a minute.” To her credit, she looks more concerned than any other adult has.

Bill stares for a second, then storms off, slipping in through the front door fast, Richie catches Georgie running after him and thanks the gods that nothing on the planet could turn Bill’s brother against him.

“Shit,” Mike says miserably when Sharon follows him in. “Poor Bill.”

Ben looks a little stricken, turning back and forth between the truck and Bill’s house like he doesn’t know what to do. Richie can tell they all want to go in there and cheer Bill up, throw some choice words at Sharon, but there’s no sneaking in with both his parents home.

He turns back and plods toward the truck, heart heavy. Behind him, Ben sighs deeply and Richie listens to him and Mike like they’re a radio playing in another room.

“Are there any happy people?” Ben asks, sounding forlorn.

Mike says nothing, but Richie hears the shift of fabric that he knows is Mike putting an arm around him.

He climbs back into the truck alone, waits for the engine to start again to take him home. His parents are probably going to question where he’s been, tell him that he can’t just run off like that, but he knows he’s lucky. They’ll listen to his answers unlike Bill’s parents, and cook him dinner like Ben’s mom can’t. Most importantly of all, his mother will never be like Sonia, and when she sees it written all over his face exactly what Eddie means to him, he thinks she’ll love him just the same. He has two living, wonderful parents and they might miss some stuff because they’re so busy, but they would never send a crying child away, and for that he will always be grateful for them.

Mike drops him outside his house a few minutes later, and gets out of the truck to wrap him in a warm hug. He’s always given the best hugs, Richie thinks, linking his fingers together behind Mike’s back and squeezing, cheek pressed into his shoulder. Mike will figure something out. He always does.

“Richie?” His mother comes out of the house, hair swinging in a messy ponytail and her tortoiseshell glasses askew. “Have you been at Bill’s all day? Don’t they have other stuff to do? I know we’re not home much but-”

“Mom,” Richie says, and his voice hitches. “Something happened to Eddie.”

“What?” Her face scrunches up in alarm. “Is he at the hospital?”

“No,” he says, crumpling.

“Okay, come in, kid,” she says, putting a hand on his back. “Explain in the kitchen. Ben, Mike, would you like to come in?”

“I think we have to get going,” Ben says, giving Richie a quick strained smile. “Thanks, Maggie.”

They drive off, and Richie follows his mom in and sits down on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. 

“What’s happened to Eddie? Where is he?”

“He’s-” Richie breaks off, swallows. “We don’t know. His mom took him to the airport and wouldn’t tell anyone where.”

“On a holiday?” His mom scrunches her face up, and he recognises his own expressions in her confusion. “What’s so dreadful about that?”

“No, not a holiday! She sent him off on his own ‘cause-”

She raises an eyebrow at him, encourages him to continue. 

“She thinks I made him gay,” he finishes miserably. “I guess.”

She stares at him for a second, and the kitchen is painfully silent. He briefly entertains the idea of being sent away and ending up right next to Eddie, wherever he is.

“Mom-”

“It’s fine, sweetie,” she says, very gently, smiling at him. “I know.”

Richie buries his head in his hands and tries very hard not to start crying.

“Oh, Richie,” she says, getting up and gently moving his head to rest it on her chest. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want anything to change,” he says into her cardigan, and lets the dam break. “And I kissed Eddie and his mom saw, and she was so angry!”

He sits up and wipes his eyes on the sleeve of his jumper.

“Sonia,” his mother nearly growls, rolling her eyes. “I always said I couldn’t stand her. She said my clothes are tacky. Sorry, not the point.”

Richie smiles weakly at her.

“Okay,” she sighs eventually. “I’ll talk to Sonia when she’s back in town, see if we can at least find out where he’s gone. But you have to promise not to do anything impulsive, okay?”

“We drove to his aunt’s house,” Richie admits.

“In New Hampshire? Richie!”

“It’s Eddie!” Richie snaps back, on the verge of breaking down again, because he would have driven all the way to Washington if he knew Eddie was there.

“I’m supposed to ground you for that,” she says, folding her skinny arms in an attempt to do this new ‘tough mom’ thing she’s been trying out. “For two weeks. Those are the house rules, you signed our contract.” The contract is a handwritten piece of paper on the fridge which Richie had signed in crayon. It’s the highest law in the land, his father jokes.

“Are you going to?”

“Four days,” she grumbles. “I get why you did it. But you can’t do it again.”

“Mom, I’m supposed to see the others tomorrow! So we can figure it out!” Indignation rises in his voice again, and he feels bad because frankly he’s being struck a far better deal than he deserves, but he _ can’t _be stuck in the house for four days whilst Eddie needs him. 

“Then they can come here,” she points out. “Is that a deal?”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to make it a deal when you ground someone,” Richie says weakly. “I’m gonna go upstairs.”

“Okay. You know I love you, right kiddo? I’d never do anything like that just because you like boys. We can talk more in the morning, if you’re up to it?”

“I know, mom,” Richie says softly, and escapes to his room before he cries in front of her again. 

His room is a tip, and for once he wishes he listened to his dad about tidying more often, because he has to heap stupid amounts of stuff off his bed and rearrange the duvet before he can collapse into it.

_ “Richie, this is disgusting,” Eddie had said, picking a candy wrapper off the floor. Some carpet fluff had come with it, sticking to whatever remnants of chocolate were left in the plastic. “This can’t be hygienic.” _

_ “It’s how I like it! Your mom has never complained, when she visits.” _

_ “Shut the fuck up, Rich,” Eddie had snapped, creeping around like he was in a minefield instead of a teenager’s bedroom. “I fucking hate when you do that.” _

_ “Do you want to borrow these comics or not?” Richie had replied, picking some underwear up from the floor and flinging them at Eddie’s face. _

_ “Gross, Richie!” Eddie had flicked them out of the way with a shriek. “I swear I will go straight home.” _

_ “Aw. Mom said you could stay the night if you wanted.” _

_ Eddie’s face had changed then. “Really?” _

_ “Yeah, she’s cool with it. I think she kinda enjoys winding your mom up.” _

_ “Who wouldn’t?” Eddie had said, but he was grinning. “I’ll stay. But only if you tidy your fucking floor up.” _

_ “Deal.” Richie had stuck out his hand, and Eddie had taken it in his own and they’d shaken on it, Richie ignoring the butterflies in his stomach and the way the skin of his hand felt like it was burning all the while. _

_ * _

Looking back, Richie thinks, when it’s four days later and they’re getting absolutely nowhere (their group meeting had consisted of Bill writing FIND EDDIE at the top of a notepad and underlining it twice) he really should have figured out what was happening between him and Eddie sooner. 

He is no longer grounded and he’s had something of an epiphany when it comes to cracking this case wide fucking open.

These are the facts.

Eddie has left the state.

Sonia won’t even tell them what kind of place he's gone to.

One of her friends' kids is there too.

Henry Bowers has been gone for four months.

He hasn’t talked to the others about this little revelation yet. It’s weird and stupid and probably selfish, but just for a few hours, he wants to keep something of Eddie to himself. If he can own this idea, maybe part of him can know Eddie a little better, know where he is and if he’s okay. 

Besides, he’s about to do something really stupid.

“Hey!” Richie shouts when he sees the person he’s looking for standing on the kissing bridge, smoking a cigarette over the side. “Hockstetter!”

“Tozier,” Patrick Hockstetter flicks his cigarette into the water (Eddie would have a _ fit _) and glares at him. “The fuck do you want?”

“Henry Bowers,” Richie says, trying to keep his voice demanding and steady, not letting on that he is definitely about to shit his pants. “Where did he go?”

For once, Patrick looks somewhat surprised, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“Where is he?” Richie asks again. “Whatever you know, please just tell me.”

“Why the fuck would I tell you anything?!” Patrick sneers. “What have you and your little fairy friends got to do with me?”

“Shut up,” Richie snaps. “Leave my friends out of this.”

“Uh, you can’t come to me for a favour and then tell me to shut up, Tozier!” Patrick advances on him, and Richie shrinks back, sincerely regretting his decision to come here alone.

“Tell me where Bowers is!” Richie shouts again, and Patrick punches him hard in the stomach. When he’s doubled up and gasping, something glances hard off his cheek.

“Ow,” he grunts, pulling himself up. “Fuck you.”

Patrick pushes him back onto the ground, and he decides it’s wisest to stop trying to get up because his head feels kind of like it’s full of cotton wool. Last time Patrick hit him, Eddie had been there too. He had dragged Richie to the hospital, filled out a bunch of forms that Richie barely understood but Eddie seemed all too accustomed with, and when Richie was admitted to be observed for concussion he had stayed until visiting hours were over and then left to key Patrick’s car.

“Henry got packed off to gay camp,” Patrick hisses. “His dad caught him with some flamer. You wanna be careful Tozier, or they’ll send you off there too.”

He flicks him in the head and stalks off, leaving Richie lying in the dirt with his heart breaking into thousands of pieces, and _ R + E _ carved into the wooden panel just within his eyeline.

* * *

“I think,” Bev says, adding a lacklustre stick man to her doodle, “You should do something crazy.” 

They’re sitting in a large, bright room that the staff call the studio, because it’s used for art therapy, and Bev and Stan call the shithole, because it is a shithole. It’s been nearly a week since they broke him out of counselling, and he’s had a full session since, but his gratitude has quickly evolved into a good friendship. 

“Like what?” Eddie replies, rubbing his eyes. He’s tired pretty much all the time now, and his joints ache from sports yesterday, so he’s pretty cautious of what Bev might mean.

“If they weren’t already watching you closely, I’d suggest some crazy prank. But I actually mean when you get out of here. You gotta show your mom you’re not taking any shit.”

“They’re watching me closely?”

“Uh,” Bev raises an eyebrow. “You’re friends with _ me._”

“Fair point,” Eddie replies, laughing. “I don’t know when I’m getting out of here though. Lisa says I’m deeply indoctrinated and uncooperative.”

“Robert says I’m traumatised and bitter.” Bev stabs her pencil into the paper, watches Robert walk across the room, her eyes dark and resentful. “I don’t even know what Lisa says to Stanley. He won’t talk about it. But maybe you should ask him when he gets back. Man to man.”

“Oh yeah, we’re so manly,” Eddie rolls his eyes fondly, then pauses. “Seriously though, is he okay?”

“I...worry about him constantly,” Bev says, frowning. “This place is not good for him. Not that it’s good for anyone, but you’ve seen him. A strong breeze could finish the job.”

“He thinks Bowers is gonna kill him,” Eddie confides. It’s been bothering him ever since Stanley said it. The certainty of the statement, like he’s some tragic prophet with a distaste for your mom jokes and a special interest in birds, feels like it means more than just teenage drama. 

“I don’t blame him,” Bev sighs. “Bowers is so fucked up. I think even the staff are afraid of him.”

“He’s the worst,” Eddie agrees. “But one time Richie put slugs in his shoes, and it was really cathartic.”

“I wish I’d seen that,” Bev grins. “Though I can’t imagine he was happy about it.”

Robert looks over at them, and they both duck their heads back to their paper. Eddie adds a few more lines to his drawing of a bird. Bev’s advised him to draw something just vague enough that they’ll be able to pull symbolism out of their asses, but she’s apparently enough of a lost cause that she can do whatever the hell she wants.

“He wasn’t. But what is it with him and _ Stanley _?” Eddie pushes. “He doesn’t seem like the pranking type.”

“I don’t-” Bev bites her lip, eyes dancing around the room. “Stan, Henry, Vic. Everything got so fucked up and he was stuck in that room for so long, and- well, I wouldn’t be surprised if your cabin was haunted.”

Eddie gawps at her.

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Bev says flatly. “There is not really a ghost in your cabin, Eddie. Though Stan can be pretty ghoulish.”

“Have you guys been friends since he got here?”

“Pretty much. I thought he was gonna be another neurotic, boring kid who would be here for a few weeks then clear off. Turns out he was a neurotic, boring kid who is still here months later. And he’s really great.”

“He _ is _pretty neurotic,” Eddie smiles.

“Stan is the most annoying person in the world,” Bev tells him, the same way you’d give directions or state a fact. “Damn, I love that guy.”

“Like...love him?” Eddie asks.

She gives him a dead eyed look. “Would we really be here if that was the case?”

“You could like guys and girls,” he says, a little embarrassed.

“Touché,” Bev shrugs. “And I do, actually. But he doesn’t. We’ve discussed faking a relationship before, just to get the fuck outta dodge. Found my true love at conversion therapy camp, what a story, right?”

“One for the papers,” Eddie agrees. “Why don’t you do it?”

“I don’t wanna go home,” she says darkly. “This place fucking sucks but my father isn’t here and I get three meals and a shower every day. I’m better off for it. And Stanley probably can’t set foot in his town without being thrown to the wolves. We got nowhere else to go, Eddie.”

“Jesus,” Eddie says. 

“Well, he’s got nothing to do with it.” She finishes stabbing at the paper, drops her pen next to it. “Do you want to go home, Eddie? Because you should think long and hard about the fact that you got sent here in the first place.”

“Stan asked me that yesterday,” Eddie says glumly. “I’m starting to think they got in his head.”

“You could go home you know,” she says gently. “When we write letters, tell your mom you’re off your meds. Phrase it like a good thing, so they actually send it. If she’s as bad as you say, she’ll pull you out straight away.”

“Oh,” Eddie manages, blinking hard. “You think that’d work?”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she says quickly. “They might not send it, and I don’t know her at all. But maybe.”

“Right,” he murmurs, mind reeling. It’s only been just under a week since he got here, and his memories of Derry already have a weird, hazy filter over them like the first seventeen years of his life were a dream that’s slipping away in the morning.

“We’ll probably get to write some letters in a few weeks. They try to get me to write to my dad, so I usually just swear a lot so they won’t send it. I think Stanley just copies out the template. But you should go full doting son.”

They lapse into silence, Eddie considering the monumental thing Bev has just told him, Bev thinking something he couldn’t even begin to guess at. She doesn’t say anything else until they’re discharged for free time until a movie later. Bev’s face goes dark when they mention a movie, and Eddie suspects they don’t mean a Disney classic.

She tells him on the way out that it’s a film about AIDS that plays more like a horror than a tragedy. It makes him feel a little ill just to imagine.

He has a blank journal now, but he doesn’t really feel like writing in it, so he tears a page out of the back and doodles as he waits for Stanley to get back. He’s been dragged off for a counselling session with Lisa, which Bev says is very much a lamb to the slaughter kind of deal.

Whilst he’s thinking about this, Eddie notices markings on the wall between the bed and the table beside it. When he leans closer, he sees that someone has drawn and written on the walls, scratched symbols into the wood.

_ Vic was here _

_ Stan Uris is a fag _

_ Let it burn _

Below the last one, there’s a scrawled pentagram, and next to it what looks like a hangman. The irony is horrific, but most of his sympathy lies with poor Stanley, who was trapped in this room with someone who clearly treated him like shit, and based on the writings, might have been completely unhinged.

When the door to their room swings open, banging hard against the wall, he nearly drops it on the floor.

“You need to leave,” Stanley says immediately, and Eddie is stunned into silence before he can reply. “You need to get out of here, you need to _ go._”

His face is flushed, and he’s speaking so fast that Eddie can barely understand him, frantic in a way he hasn’t seen him before. His voice is thick with tears, but he doesn’t seem to actually be crying yet.

“I- what?” Eddie sits up properly, hands hovering, wondering whether he should be trying to calm him down. “You want me to leave? Did I do something?”

“No! No, not the room, you’re fine. God, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot.” Stanley is pacing around the room, and Eddie remembers the time a bird had been trapped in their kitchen. It had flitted around so fast that it was just a blur, clearly in such a panic that Eddie hadn’t known how to help it. When he had turned around to open the door, it had flown into the clear glass window and died. He used to have nightmares about that little bird.

“Stan, what’s wrong?”

“Everything. I’m sorry I said it wasn’t so bad here. I think I’m losing my mind, I-” He breaks off, wringing his hands. “You just need to get out of here before they get you too.”

“Bev said something about letters-”

“Yes!” Stan clicks his fingers, then points at Eddie, slightly manic. “You have to- you have to write to your mom and tell her you’re ill or something, or off the pills, yeah that’s better, that would work, and she’ll probably book you a ticket right out before they fuck with your head.”

“You need to calm down,” Eddie says, getting off the bed and grabbing Stan’s shoulder.

Stan jumps away like Eddie’s hand is a hot poker, eyes wild.

“Sorry,” Eddie says quickly, drawing his hand back and raising them like he’s approaching a frightened animal. “I won’t touch you. Did something happen?”

“Nothing new,” Stan shakes his head, exhales shakily. “I just never should have made you think it’s okay here. It’s not okay at all. Vic fucking died! He killed himself to get out of here!” A few tears escape, and he bites on his lip.

“You need to sit down,” Eddie tells him. He wants to get Bev, but he knows that the chances of being caught are high, and he can’t leave Stan by himself whilst he’s interrogated. “Stan, come on.”

Stan sinks onto his bed, runs a hand through his curls. He seems to be slowing down a bit, taking steadier breaths and going a little stiller. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks hesitantly, sitting down next to him so that they’re shoulder to shoulder.

“Layered question,” Stanley says, and laughs sort of hysterically. “Not as such, no.”

“Oh dear.”

Stanley just shrugs. 

“Can I do anything?” He says eventually, itching to make this terrible sadness go away. 

“Just,” Stanley huffs a sigh. “Just don’t let it ruin you, okay?”

Eddie nods, swallowing hard. 

They sit side by side for a minute, silent except for the sound of Stan’s shaky breaths. Eventually, Eddie reaches out and takes Stan’s cold hand in his, squeezing his trembling fingers and feeling him squeeze tightly back and they sit like that, holding onto hollow comfort until the next nightmare rolls around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading as always! i love reading what you guys are thinking, so please drop a comment to let me know! kudos are also always welcome <3
> 
> you can also DM me or send me asks on tumblr @grumpystan any time to talk about this fic or the losers in general!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The losers clash, information is passed around, and Eddie makes contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 7 coming to you from me in bed, because i am exhausted. i don't have much to say here! the story is picking up more now with eddie's section, so continue to read the warnings and enjoy!
> 
> warnings for this chapter: references to past child sexual abuse, suicidal thoughts, mentions (but no use) of conversion therapy practices including pornography, electricity, and drugging

Half an hour later, Richie is thumping on Mike’s door, which is definitely making his headache worse, but he’s gonna blame Patrick for clubbing him in the head before he blames himself for trying to get help. He doesn’t spend much time alone with Mike, though not for lack of wanting to, but he has to admit that he’s mostly here because Bill’s is quite far away and he’s a little dizzy.

“Richie?” Mike opens the door, looking slightly irritated before his face shifts. “Holy shit, what happened to your face?!”

“Hockstetter happened,” Richie says, touching his grazed cheek and feeling where a bruise will form. “Mike, I think Eddie’s in conversion therapy.”

Mike just closes his eyes and sighs softly. “I’d been thinking that might be the case,” he says. “I didn’t want to say anything without any evidence. Did Patrick tell you something?”

“That’s where Bowers is,” Richie says as Mike ushers him into the house and sits him down at the table. “I think he’s the friend’s kid.”

“Sonia is friends with Henry’s mom?” Mike runs a washcloth under the tap, turns back to look at him with worried eyes. “Actually no, I’m not surprised at all.”

Mike takes a sip from a mug that says  _ World’s Best Grandpa  _ on it and comes to sit in the chair next to Richie, pressing the cloth with ice cubes wrapped inside it to Richie’s face.

“Tell me what happened,” he says eventually. “And who the president is.”

“Um. Bill Clinton.” Richie blinks at him. “Did you fall into a wormhole?”

“I’m checking you’re not concussed,” Mike says. “I don’t think you hit your head though.”

“Stop worrying about me,” Richie snaps, batting his hand away. “We need to do something about Eddie. It seems likely, doesn’t it? I can’t believe we didn’t think of this.”

“It does seem likely,” Mike agrees grimly. “Jesus, poor Eddie. He must be terrified.”

Richie makes a hopeless noise and lets Mike press the cloth back.

“I’m sorry,” Mike says. “I’m sure he’s okay. He’s a tough one, our Eddie.”

“Well, we can’t just leave him there!” Richie feels tears rise in his eyes again. God, he had no idea how damn emotional he was until Eddie got swept away from him.

“Of course we’re not,” Mike replies, and he takes the cloth away and winces. “That’s gonna bruise badly, Rich.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, you should. We all love Eddie, you know that. And we’ll do something, but you getting punched around by Patrick won’t do anyone any good.”

“I can’t sit still,” Richie admits. “Not if he’s there. Not if he’s suffering.”

“You can’t sit still anyway,” Mike says affectionately. “We’ve got a good starting point, Rich. We can figure out where all...those places are, and try and narrow it down. Or find out which one Bowers is at.  _ We’ll find him.  _ But you can’t keep going crazy!”

“I’m not going crazy!”

“We’ve broken into a house, driven to New Hampshire and back, and you’ve been beaten up. Every time I hear a creak, I think you’re in my house. And you can imagine what that’s like in a farmhouse!”

“So what do we do?” Richie asks, not laughing. “How do we find out which one he’s at?”

“Call Bill and Ben. I’ll start trawling the internet, see how much we’re working with.” 

Richie goes to Mike’s phone in the kitchen, pulls on the cord as he looks around the room. The plates are all on the side where Mike and his grandpa have been eating standing up, because there’s a huge incubator on the dining table, warmly lit with eggs sitting inside it.

He wonders vaguely what will hatch from them as he dials Bill’s number. He has all of his friend’s numbers memorised. He’s dialled Eddie’s more times than he can count, at every hour of every day, because he always wants to talk to him.

Eddie is never surprised when he calls at ridiculous hours, always just answering with a bleary “Rich?” but Bill and Ben at least wait for him to say who’s calling before sighing like they’d been expecting this.

He doesn’t say much over the phone, just asks them to come to Mike’s, and they both agree without hesitation. 

When Bill arrives, he’s got Georgie with him, clutching his hand and staring wide-eyed around Mike’s farm.

“Hey, you guys,” Richie says gently. “Bill, I didn’t know you were bringing my favourite little guy.”

“Dean is ill, so I can’t go to his house,” Georgie says very seriously. “Mom and Dad aren’t home.”

Bill shrugs helplessly.

“Hey, Georgie!” Mike cuts in, breezing into the doorway with a bright smile like nothing’s wrong. “Do you want to come with me and see our new lamb? She’s only a few days old, you might be able to bottle feed her!”

Georgie squeals, and takes off running towards the barn. Ben, who had arrived a few minutes earlier, blinks after him in amused surprise. 

“I am gonna go save that sheep,” Mike says, grinning. “Richie, fill Bill and Ben in, yeah?”

He jogs off after Georgie, catching him and swinging him over his shoulder as Georgie yells in delight. Bill watches them for a moment, smiling, then turns back to Richie.

“What happened to your face?” Ben asks, looking like he’s actively restraining himself from poking helpfully at it.

Richie recounts the whole grim story, starting with his epiphany whilst grounded, ending with a dramatised version of his arrival on Mike’s doorstep that involves a dramatic collapse and maybe a thunderstorm.

“Well,” Bill says eventually. “We should p-probably do something ab-about that.”

“I...would like everything to be okay now,” Ben says sadly, rubbing his head a little, so that some of his hair sticks straight up like a haystack. Richie vaguely remembers that they used to call him that. 

“Yep,” he replies sadly. “We need to find out which one. I reckon we can probably get it out of his mom, or she must have it written down somewhere, right? Or maybe Patrick, or hell, even Henry’s mom.”

“Richie, we don’t know for sure that’s where he is, okay?” Ben says, trying to calm him down. “You need to slow down.”

“How can I slow down?!” Richie cries, incredulous. “Eddie is gone! He’s been missing for a fucking week, how are none of you beside yourselves? What is wrong with all of you? Why are you just sitting around doing nothing, when he’s out there suffering?!”

“Will you stop acting like you’re the only one of us who loves Eddie!” Bill shouts suddenly, his voice cracking painfully.

“Then act like it!” Richie yells back.

“Guys!” Ben sounds distraught, and some distant part of Richie beyond all the anger feels guilty. “Guys, stop it!”

“No!” Bill carries on. “I am t-trying. Of course I love Eddie, he’s been my b-best friend for  _ years _ ! I don’t remember ever going this long without seeing him except holidays! And I go p-past his house, every day, looking for his mom’s car in case he’s b-back! But I have Georgie, and my p-parents are so- fuck, Richie, you’re not the only person struggling right now!”

“I just want to find him,” Richie says weakly. “And it feels like everyone else doesn’t get it! The longer we leave him there, the worse it’s going to be. Those places, they- I think they really fuck you up, I don’t know, but it’s bad, and we need to do something  _ now. _ ”

He’s cut off from continuing when Georgie tears back in, nearly crashing into the incubator and making everyone in the room reflexively reach out to stop him.

“Billy! The lamb is so little, Mike put her on my knee, and I got to give her a bottle, and her wool was so soft, I patted it and she fell asleep, she was so  _ cute _ !” Georgie babbles as he climbs onto Bill’s knee, completely defusing the tension in the room. “Why are you crying?” 

“I’m n-not crying,” Bill says, smiling at Georgie and rubbing his shoulders. “I must be allergic to one of the animals.”

Georgie nods wisely. Ben looks like he could pass out from the relief that the fighting is over. 

Mike appears back in the doorway, looking a little shell shocked (an effect Georgie is known to have) but serious.

“What happened to your face?” Georgie asks, pointing at Richie in case anyone wasn’t sure who he meant.

“I fell,” Richie says simply. “You know how clumsy I am.”

“Billy says that every time a person says they fell, they’re probably lying, and you should look after them.”

“Well, R-Richie’s telling the truth this time,” Bill says quickly, shooting Richie an apologetic look.

“You’ve made this kid way too smart,” Mike says affectionately. “And he’s great with animals.”

Georgie is so pleased by this that he lets Mike leave him in the living room with the TV on, watching some game show that he apparently finds indescribably exciting.

When Mike returns, the four of them sit at the table in slightly uncomfortable silence.

“I’m sorry I said that, Bill,” Richie says eventually, and he genuinely means it. He knows his friends love Eddie. It’s hard to believe anyone wouldn’t. 

“I’m sorry too,” Bill replies, offering him a weak smile. “Rough week.”

“Okay,” Mike says eventually. “I did some research before you got here. There are...a lot of these camps in America. I ruled out any that he wouldn’t have to fly to, and the super religious ones, because I figured his mom would take the medical angle, right?” 

He pauses, clearly anxious for agreement, and all of them nod for him to continue.

“That narrows it down a lot. And most of them would take days to drive to, they’re all pretty far. But we still can’t possibly know which.”

“So it’s a dead end. Again.” Richie clenches his fists, tries to stay calm. “What exactly are we supposed to do?”

“You had g-good ideas earlier,” Bill says. “We can try his mom. Or Patrick, somehow. But we’ll figure it out.” 

“Yeah,” Ben says, nodding solemnly. “We’re nearly there. We’ve figured out a lot already.”

There’s nothing else to say, so Richie trails back home. His parents are at the kitchen table playing Scrabble, and when he comes in they’re passionately debating whether curse words are allowed, both laughing hard around arguments.

He’s overcome by the urge not to ruin the fun they’re having with the state of him, so he slips upstairs and calls to them that he’s home, then strips off his bloodied shirt and dumps it in his laundry. He’ll face the music when he goes down for dinner, he supposes.

Right now, he doesn’t know what to do. Sonia isn’t back, so he can’t interrogate her. There’s no way he’ll survive another encounter with Hockstetter. All that’s left to do is sit here and pray that somehow, wherever he is, Eddie knows he is trying, and that eventually, he will save him as many times and in as many ways as he needs it.

* * *

It probably shouldn’t surprise Eddie that, when trapped in a hellish camp in the middle of nowhere with kind people an endangered species, three slightly fucked up teenagers can become inseparable fast.

He has no one else who he can so much as eat breakfast with, so Stan and Bev quickly carve out a place in his life that he can’t imagine being empty.

“Eddie,” Stan is kicking the door of the bathroom in a deliberate, stilted pattern. “Eddie, hurry up, come on.” 

“I’m coming!” Eddie shouts, fiddling with his buttons as Stan rattles at the handle. “Do you want to see me naked?” 

“That’s why I’m here,” he says back. “I heard I got to share a cabin in the woods with a guy. I didn’t read the small print.” 

“Oh, haha,” Eddie says, opening the bathroom door and throwing his pyjamas at Stan’s head. “Aren’t you just the king of comedy?” 

“Only on Sundays,” Stan says dryly. He’s in a lighter mood than yesterday. Eddie isn’t quite used to his highs and lows yet, and his mood swings are kind of scary, but he likes his good days a lot. “You heterosexual yet?” 

“Nope. You?” 

“Sadly, my condition has not improved. I think it’s terminal.” 

Eddie pulls a sad face. “Maybe some dry toast will fix you.” 

It’s nice to have someone to joke with. Things are bad here, really bad, and the movie yesterday had sent him into such a panic attack that Lisa had been spooked enough to actually get his pills and force one down his throat. He had nearly taken one of Bev’s cigarettes when they were outside that night, stopped only by his fear of lung cancer and Stan’s hand on his back.

Bev however, fears neither death nor Stanley, and Eddie can blatantly still smell the smoke on her when he and Stan drop into the other chairs at their table. He’s 100% certain the staff can smell it too, but they have no way of proving she has any way to smoke here, and they seem to leave her alone.

“You stink,” Stan says as they sit down, with the kind of brutal honesty that only best friends use. “Did you even shower this morning?”

“I overslept and Betty hogged it,” she grumbles. “I know you two are still in your roommate honeymoon phase, but holy shit that girl takes hours.”

“At least there  _ is _ a honeymoon phase,” Stan says amicably. “It’s been what, a week? Reginald had already been put in isolation twice by then. And my leg scarred.”

“Damn,” Eddie says shortly. He likes Stanley enough by now that his old roommate stories are starting to spark proper anger reactions in him. The more secrets start to slip out, the more he fears how long he’s going to be here. 

No one is coming to rescue him. His mom isn’t going back on her word, and he has no idea if Richie even knows where he is. If he knows, he’ll be frantic, Eddie isn’t deluded enough yet to think Richie doesn’t care, but there’s no way in hell he can actually do anything about it.

Still, his heart jumps a little every time he thinks of reuniting with him. He’s not sure if it’s excitement or if it’s fear that things will be different, that this place will change him into a person who Richie doesn’t love, or one who can’t love him.

Eddie confides these worries in Stan later that afternoon, when the two of them are lurking on the side of a soccer game. Apparently the Center holds a strong belief that disengagement from sport is the reason they’re all gay, so the boys are fielded outside to play unnecessarily aggressive sports every time the weather is good. 

And unfortunately, the weather is always fucking great here.

“No offence, Stan, but I don’t wanna be here as long as you’ve been,” he tells him, squinting wildly at the ball which is far away enough that they don’t have to really worry yet. “It’s been a week, I’ve had enough."

“None taken,” Stan replies, shivering despite the sun. “This place blows. Hey, you’re sixteen, right? When’s your birthday?”

“November,” Eddie tells him. “You don’t have to get me anything though.”

“Very funny. Just make sure you’re out of here before you’re eighteen. Everyone says that’s when it gets real bad.”

“Can’t you take yourself out when you’re eighteen? Because you’re an adult?” The ball flies near them, and they both shy away instinctively, then laugh at each other.

“Sure, if you have somewhere else to go,” Stan says. “A lot of people kinda get stuck. And once you’re eighteen, there’s a lot more treatment they can legally do.”

Eddie remembers the stories he’s read on the darkest corners of the internet, stories of being forced to watch porn, getting sick on terrible drugs, electric shocks. He doesn’t think he’ll survive that if he’s still here, but he knows if it really comes to it, he’ll be able to go to Richie or Bill or Mike or Ben, because he’s one of the lucky ones and he has a family apart from his mother who he’s sure are missing him as much as he’s missing them.

He’s not sure what will happen to his new friends.

“What about you?” Eddie asks, trying to read Stan’s features with the sun in his eyes.

“Oh man,” Stan smiles wryly, pausing to clap with fake enthusiasm as their team scores. “If I’m still here by my eighteenth birthday, I think I’ll just kill myself.” He’s not joking, Eddie can tell.

“Stan!” Eddie says weakly, hating that his friend feels this way and hating that he kind of agrees that it’s probably better to take yourself out of the equation before it loses any semblance of the wholesome summer camp vibe it tries to pass off.

“Bev will be fine,” Stan continues, like he’s not listening. “She can walk out of here on her own and thrive, she’s like my crazy survivalist uncle who lives in a cabin in the woods and blames stuff on the government. But her birthday is months after mine, and I won’t last out there. And my birthday is before yours too, fat lot of good you are.”

Eddie stares at him.

“That was a joke,” Stan explains. “Don’t worry about me, Eddie.”

“I worry about everything, remember?” Eddie elbows him gently. “It took years to come to terms with that.”

“Stanley and Eddie!” Robert shouts from the side, and they roll their eyes at each other and jog reluctantly back into the fray before Eddie can ask any more questions.

Later, when they’re in their room and scrubbing dirt off their legs (both of them hate the dirt and have scrubbed so hard that their calves are red, but at least they have something in common) Eddie puts a hand on Stan’s bony shoulder and lets him rest his cheek on it for a moment, an act of silent and painfully gentle compassion.

“I’m not Reginald, you know,” Eddie tells him when his back is turned again. “I won’t hurt you. You’re my friend.”

It’s probably a little pathetic that, after his little group back home, Stan is probably his best friend. He doesn’t really have any casual friendships, and a bond forged in a fire like this one is the kind that becomes a part of you. As much as he hates it here, wants to get out more than anything, the idea of leaving his new friends, especially poor Stan. He doesn’t trust them to give him a good roommate at all.

“Stan,” he says again. “You can talk to me.”

“I know,” Stan says, and his eyes are bright and glossy. “You’re doing everything right, Eddie. Please don’t think you’re getting it wrong.”

“I want to help you,” he says weakly, rubbing away spots of blood on his leg. 

“You are helping,” Stan says evenly. “Really. You and Bev are the best.”

He offers him a smile, and sits down on the bed, pulling out the paper he’d been doodling on in art therapy.

“Is that a titmouse?” Stanley asks suddenly, peering at Eddie’s paper with renewed curiosity. 

“Um,” Eddie blinks at him. “It’s a bird.”

“Edward.” Stanley looks like he’s trying hard not to laugh.

“It’s just a bird!” Eddie laughs. “Do I look like I know what a tittymouse is?”

“I always knew I’d come in one day to find you two looking at tits,” says a voice from the window, and they both whip around to see Bev climbing in through their window. “Don’t look at me like that Eddie, you don’t spend this long hanging out with Stan without being able to recognise a titmouse.”

“You’re early today,” Stan says, still scrutinising the drawing. “Eddie, this has the wrong beak for a titmouse.”

“It’s just a bird! I don’t know birds! I wasn't trying to draw a fucking titmouse!”

“Leave him be, Staniel,” Bev says fondly, then furrows her eyebrows. “Have you been crying?”

“I have not,” Stan replies, stubborn as ever. “I’ve teared up. It’s different.”

“Eddie?” Bev swings her gaze around to him. “Rat him out.”

“Technically true?” Eddie shrugs, and she narrows her eyes at him. He shoots her a slightly concerned look that he hopes she catches onto, and then continues like nothing is wrong. “What’s up, Bev?”

“Evil plan, boys,” she says. “You up for some light rule-breaking activities?”

“How light?” Stanley narrows his eyes. “No arson, Bev.”

“No arson! We need to break into the office again, I’m out of cigarettes. Eddie, we’ll debrief you.”

Eddie likes to think of himself as a good, rule-abiding person, but he can’t deny that the idea of breaking into the office with Bev and Stan kind of sounds like fun. It’s probably going to be terrifying, and he is definitely going to annoy the shit out of both of them with his worries, but he hates this place enough that most of the guilt isn’t really a concern.

“I’m in,” he says, and Bev quietly punches the air, then grabs them both by the wrists and drags them back to the window. 

“There’s no one in the main building right now,” Bev tells them as they clamber out. “Lisa’s in the staff cabin near the isolation cabin, ‘cause one of the girls got put in there earlier, she mouthed off during group therapy, it was fucking  _ excellent.  _ And Robert’s gone to pick up a package, no one delivers all the way out here. So we have the place to ourselves!”

She’s right, not that Eddie ever doubted her ability to just say things with an insane degree of confidence and have them come true. The main building is dead silent, and he thinks, as they creep through the halls, that if the kids who have died here stuck around, then they’re all in these hallways.

“Here we go!” Bev says brightly, opening the door to a large, fancy room that Eddie hasn’t been in before. “Leave everything as you found it. Don’t take anything that would obviously trace back to you, or definitely be missed. Only stuff they could have misplaced or used and forgotten.”

“You’re the only one here to steal, Bev,” Stan whispers back. “We’re just along for the ride.”

Bev winks at him and starts scouring the desk that must belong to Lisa. As she roots around, Stan drifts over to the other desk, hands hovering cautiously over the things balanced in the mess. 

Eddie could swear he sees Stan tuck something into his sleeve, but maybe it’s just a trick of the light.

“Guys, check out my therapy notes,” Bev says suddenly, breaking the eerie quiet of the room again. “Robert says my father made me sexually deviant and angry.”

“Weird conclusion,” Eddie muses, wondering where his own notes are. “These people are so fucking strange.”

“Oh no, he’s like half right,” Bev says, frowning. “But I’m actually just fucking angry. How is it that he gets to be a fucking pedophile and traumatise me for life, make me afraid of fucking everyone who looks at me, and yet the only problem people see is that I like girls? That’s the conclusion they draw from this?”

She’s furious, darker than Eddie has ever seen her, and he can finally grimly pinpoint the source of all the storms in her eyes. Lovely, fierce Bev, who made him laugh on his first night here, who pulled the fire alarm to save him from the people she is making fun of, has come straight from the frying pan into the fire, and she’s still unfailingly good.

“I just-” Bev sighs hard, wipes at her eyes. “Imagine if it had all meant something. If there was a lesson to be learned from any of this, or justice, or just a happier next chapter. But no, it’s just another goddamn tragedy. And I just have to get on with it.”

Stan slips across the room and drops down to sit next to her, resting one hand on her head, long fingers playing with her hair. She leans into him, sniffing a little. 

Eddie doesn’t really know what to do, because he’s never seen Bev like this, but he joins them on the floor amongst the papers that condemn them, and rests his head on her shoulder. She takes his hand, plays with his fingers for a moment and then just lets their arms rest across her knee and they sit like that, for a little while whilst she shakes.

“I got my cigarettes,” she says eventually.

“We are so cutting you off those things one day,” Eddie replies, and grins at Stan to get him on his side. Stan looks a bit pale, but he smiles idly and nods along.

“Whatever,” Bev clears her throat. “Does anyone want anything else? We probably should have cleared out a while ago, if I’m honest.”

“Is there a phone in here?” Eddie asks, struck by the thought almost at the same time as it comes out of his mouth.

“Uh, yeah,” Bev points at it, sitting on a little table by the window. “Eddie, I swear to god, you are not calling your mother.”

“I could call Richie,” he whispers, and suddenly his heart is racing. “I know his number, I could call him.”

“Oh my god,” Bev’s eyes widen. “Yes! Tell Richie you’re here! Oh man, that guy sounds like a lunatic, he will one hundred percent come here.”

“Maine to Cali is a long way,” Stan says, but his face has changed. “Call him, Eddie. We’ll...give you some privacy.”

He drags Bev out by the hand, both of them clearly burning up with the energy of it all, and then Eddie is alone in the office, and before he can even process it, he’s dialling Richie’s number.

_ Please be home _ , he thinks to himself.  _ Please let me hear his voice. _

He picks up the phone, twirls the cord round his trembling fingers as he listens to it ring. Derry feels so far away that it’s like another world. It’s insane to think that he can even reach it down a phone.

Before he can think about it any deeper, there’s the sound of someone answering the phone.

“Hello?” Richie’s voice is in his ear suddenly, and oh god, he’s missed him so much, thought about him every day, and he has no idea what to even tell him. It’s Richie. The beginning and end of this whole disaster. The boy who’s supposedly leading him into hell. 

His voice is so choked up he can barely respond. “Richie?” He sounds pathetic, but he doesn’t even care. 

There’s a sharp breath on the end of the line. “Eddie?!” Richie whispers, sounding stunned. “Oh my god, Eddie.”

“Hi!” Eddie replies, suddenly frantic with desperation to talk, beaming at the carpet. “Hi, yeah it’s me.”

“Holy shit. Oh shit, Eddie, I am so so sorry. Are you okay? Fuck, what did she do to you?” 

“I’m okay,” he breathes down the line. He’s not, not really, but he’s alive and Richie’s voice is in his ear so that’ll do for now. “I snuck into the office to use the phone.”

“Jesus,” Richie says. “God, Eddie, we thought- your mother, I thought-“

“Oh,” Eddie says, staring at his shoes. “No, I’m okay.” He says it like he could be answering a cashier asking how he is.

“Patrick says Bowers is at a...camp,” Richie says tightly. “Are you with him?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies. “Yeah, it’s uh, a therapy place.”

“Fuck,” Richie says, sounding close to tears. Then, suddenly urgent: “Eddie, where is it? What’s it called?” 

“Um, California, the Wilhelm Stekel Centre,” Eddie reels off. “Richie-“ 

“Sit tight, okay? We’re coming to get you.” 

“What? That’s insane, Richie, don’t-“ He’s saying it out of some weird sense of formality that he’s never had with Richie before, and he knows from the tense breath on the other end of the line that Richie has noticed it too. Maybe, he thinks sickly, something at this place is working.

“Don’t be stupid, Eds. We’re coming.” Richie says. “Hey, do you- do you have any friends there?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie tells him, smiling at his shoes. “Stan and Beverly. We snuck in together to get stuff.” 

“Beverly, huh? Is she hot?” Richie asks, and Eddie laughs so much he has to clap a hand over his mouth. It’s so like Richie to make the most inappropriate joke humanly possible in the moment.

“Fucking hell,” he gasps down the line. “Oh my god, Rich.”

“Yeah,” Richie says, and he’s laughing too, shakily and quietly. “Eds, you hold on, okay? You’re gonna be fine, we’ll get you out of there, don’t listen to anything they tell you.”

“I know,” Eddie murmurs. Then, on a realisation, “Holy shit, what were you saying about Patrick?”

“Um.” Richie coughs a little. “We went to your aunt’s, she said you’d gone somewhere a family friend was, I thought it had to be Bowers, ‘cause he’s missing too, I asked Patrick, he beat me up.”

“You did all that?” Eddie feels something tight in his chest. “Are you okay?”

“Sure. You’re the one stuck in Cali, Eds! Stop worrying about me.”

“Don’t let the cuts get infected,” he says lamely, and Richie laughs again.

There’s some movement in the corridor, and then Bev appears, gesturing silently for him to put the phone down.

“I have to go,” he says numbly, heart sinking.

“No! No, can’t you stay?” Richie sounds panicked again, and it’s awful.

“Sorry. I think someone’s here.” He hates to say it, wants more than anything to stay talking to Richie all night like before.

“Okay,” Richie says eventually. “Call again if you can. And we’ll come to you, okay? I promise. Eddie, I-”

And suddenly, Eddie can’t bear to hear him say those words he knows he’s going to say, because he’s spent the whole week being told how wrong it is, so he puts the phone down quickly and lets Bev drag him out into the night. 

“Robert’s car just pulled up,” she says. “I’m sorry. You got through?”

Eddie nods, unable to speak for a moment.

“Stan went back to your room,” she says, squeezing his shoulder as she changes the topic. “Said he was cold. Listen, Eddie, if it felt different-”

“It’s fine,” he says sharply, not ready for that conversation at all. “He, uh, said he’s gonna come here.”

“Wow,” Bev says, her voice betraying her doubt. “What a guy.”

They slip into the trees undetected by Robert.

“Do you think he’ll actually come?”

“Yeah,” Eddie replies, smiling. “I think he will.”

“If you guys have room on the way back…”

“You’ll be the first to know,” Eddie promises, and fluffs her hair as they part ways to their separate cabins.

Stan is in the bathroom when Eddie comes through the door. He can hear the water running, and the sound of him moving about, but he doesn’t say anything, even though he must hear Eddie come through the door.

Exhausted, Eddie curls up in his bed, facing the locked bathroom door, and falls asleep before he can forget the sound of Richie’s voice in his ear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! hugely appreciate everyone who's offered feedback so far, hope you're still enjoying it! as always, find me @grumpystan on tumblr to chat about anything, or ask any questions you may have about the content of this fic!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan breaks, Eddie fixes, and Ben and Richie rally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh god, here we go. chapter 8 has clocked in at...8.2k words, which is why this update is a little late. most of you saw what was coming in the comments last chapter, but before we get into it, i want to clarify that eddie's section of this chapter is largely lifted from personal experiences of my own, and stays true to those. it's not going to be authentic to what everyone has felt or experienced, but it's true to the situation i've been in as eddie. *slaps roof of eddie kaspbrak* this bad boy can fit SO much self-projection in it!
> 
> please heed the new tags, and here are the warnings for this chapter: somewhat graphic but ultimately not life threatening suicide attempt (compliant with the method used in canon), blood, depression and suicidal thoughts, vomiting, absolutely terrible and unsafe medical decisions, fire, references to past suicide, hospitals, very brief body dysmorphia, homophobic language, sonia kaspbrak, ableist language

When Eddie stirs again what can only be a few minutes later, the water is still running. It’s a little odd, because Stan doesn’t usually take long baths at this kind of time, but Eddie supposes he’s stressed as well as cold.

Still, their bath doesn’t take that long to run, and Stan would legitimately rather die than flood the bathroom, which is why a tiny thought in the back of his mind is twisting itself up, saying _ wake up, something is wrong. _

“Stan?” Eddie murmurs, half asleep. “Did you fall asleep in there?”

There’s a strange noise from behind the door, a strangled little gasp, and Eddie sits up fast, forgetting how tired he had been.

“Stan,” he says again. “Stan, are you okay?” He’s shaking suddenly, and his head feels like it’s filled with cotton wool.

No reply.

“This isn’t funny,” he says, half scrambling to knock on the door and shake at the handle. Stan has a weird sense of humour sometimes, and Eddie only gets maybe half of his jokes, but this doesn’t seem like his style at all. “You don’t have to talk, just open the door.”

He can’t hear movement anymore, just the trickle and slosh of water.

Fuck, Eddie should have known something was wrong. Stan slipping off early without them, taking a bath at the wrong time when he loves his routines so much, his strange tearful behaviour.

He _ did _ know something was wrong. He just didn’t fucking do anything, and now he doesn’t know how to make up for it.

“Stan, _ please _!” Eddie begs through the door. His mind is racing. Stan had made that noise just a minute ago, he knows it, and it means he is alive, but Eddie needs to move fast.

There’s the sound of water on the floor now, splattering over the sides and he has a terrible sick feeling that he knows what is going on behind the door.

He rattles the door handle again, pushes hard, but the lock won’t give even when he throws his shoulder into it hard and suddenly the jokes about how small and weak he is aren’t even remotely funny anymore.

His thoughts are scrambling desperately over each other, trying to figure out what to do, if running to find an adult will make Stan hate him, make things even worse.

(Later, he doesn’t even remember how he knew where to hit, and puts it down to sheer adrenaline, but at least he’s acting fast.)

He slams his side into the wood under the lock, then does it again. There’s a terrible burning in his arm, and a little hysterical voice tells him he’s at least bruised his shoulder badly, but he forgets about it with the almighty crack as he shatters the door and it flies open so hard that he stumbles through it.

He’s always been a catastrophizer, and his mind always leaps to the worst possible conclusion, but the shock still cuts deep when he sees what’s in front of him.

The water is a sickly pinkish shade, and the whole room has a sweet metallic smell that makes him gag.

Stan is in the bath, still wearing the clothes he had been wearing in the office, and they’re soaked through, sticking to his pale skin.

“Fuck,” Eddie chokes, scrambling across the room, slipping on the slick floor as he reaches the tub. “Come on, Stan. You’re okay, come on, you’re fine!”

To his relief, once he’s close he can see that Stan is blinking and moving and _ breathing, _ and Eddie nearly passes out from the relief because he hasn’t fucked up, he’s not too late, he didn’t fall asleep and leave him to die on the other side of the door.

“Oh god,” Eddie says, trying inelegantly to pull him from the water. “I need you to help me, okay?”

“Eddie,” Stan says as Eddie hauls him again, nearly dropping him on the hard tiled floor even though he still seems able to move on his own, but at least he’s out of the hot water, physically if not proverbially. He seems alert, and Eddie runs through symptoms of shock in his mind, mentally thanking every power he can think of that Stan doesn’t seem to be far gone. “Oh fuck.”

“I know,” Eddie tells him, and pushes his damp hair from his face as he tries to figure out how bad it is. “Let me see.”

Stan has only cut one of his wrists, and it’s long, but not too deep, though it looks like it was meant to be. There’s still blood, a lot of it, but he doesn’t think the artery is cut.

Stan yanks his wrist back before Eddie can check it any further, a small gasp of pain escaping him as he does.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Eddie, I’m sorry, you weren’t meant to- I thought-”

“It’s okay!” Eddie babbles, reaching for him again. “It’s okay, I’m not angry with you.”

“You should be,” Stan sobs, and when he waves his arm, some blood spatters onto the floor. “Like I was angry with Vic. I’m so fucking stupid, can you please just go-”

“I’m not going,” Eddie says, and the fight seems to go out of Stan, and he just drops his head into Eddie’s chest. “I’m not leaving.”

He lets himself run his fingers through Stan’s curls for a moment, glad that he’s still with him, terrified at how close it had been, before he swallows hard and lets the clinical side of his brain take over.

“I think the bleeding is slowing down,” he tells Stan, voice shaking. “But if you need stitches-” 

“No hospital,” Stan whispers, teary-eyed and frantic. “Please, if the staff find out about this, it’ll be even worse.”

“Stan..” he says, trailing off weakly. 

It’s true, he knows it. There’s no way getting the staff involved will actually help this situation. They might be able to take him to a hospital, get him cleaned up, but they’ll pass it off as something else, then bring hell down on Stanley’s head away from prying eyes.

“It’s fine,” Stan begs. “It’s not that bad. I chickened out when you came in, I couldn’t...with you in here, it wasn’t fair. I just froze, and it hurt so much I don’t think I could have-.”

“I-” Eddie can’t think of all the things he wants to tell Stan, how he’s glad he’s okay, how he would never have wanted to find him like that, how he is wonderful and kind, and everything haunting him will go away one day. “Let me get you cleaned up.”

Stan’s right, the wound in itself, forgetting for a moment everything it means, isn’t that bad. There’s a lot of blood, in the water and staining both of their clothes now, but it looks about the same as when Bowers had cut Ben up, ugly and sure to scar, but will heal on its own in time if it’s clean and bandaged.

They also don’t have any bandages.

Eddie is reluctant to get up for even a few seconds to find something, as if he’ll let go and Stan will slip through his fingers again and he won’t be able to get him back.

“I’m going to grab a shirt, okay? Don’t move.”

Stan nods faintly. He’s even paler than usual, and doesn’t seem to be as quick-minded, some part of him distant and unreachable. 

Eddie takes a shirt and a pair of scissors from the cabinet, thinking grimly that he should probably throw them, and any other sharp things they have, out, as he cuts a long strip from it. It’s not ideal, but it’ll do until they can figure something out.

“Was it clean?” Eddie asks eventually, as he wraps the bandage tight, heart sinking at Stan’s winces. “Whatever you...used.” The idea of the germs makes his stomach turn, but he knows it has the same effect on Stanley.

“Straight out of the packet,” Stan mumbles, covering his face with his other hand. “Stole it from the office.”

“Right,” he says, sighing. The quiet is heavy and uncomfortable. He wants to help, but he has no idea how to process the enormity of the situation, what he can possibly say to make Stan feel like the way out isn’t the only way forward.

He remembers Ben’s mom all of a sudden, spending long days in bed doing nothing, and standing with Mike in his kitchen helping Ben to make himself dinner, tidying up the dishes that were starting to pile up by the sink. Ben standing in her bedroom doorway, waiting for some kind of instruction, then taking a lunchbox to the library for the day.

Ben used to say that he never knew what to tell her, that he didn’t want to be angry but he was, and that there were never any words for everything he wanted to say. Eddie thinks that if Ben of all people can’t find the right words, they probably don’t exist.

“I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about it,” he says, securing the strip of cloth so it’s something that resembles a bandage. “But I think maybe you should.”

“I’m just done,” Stan says flatly, then doesn’t elaborate. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie replies.

“I’m so fucking tired,” Stan whispers, tears dripping down his cheeks. “How else do you make it stop? How do you get out?”

“I don’t know.” Eddie sits down next to him on the bathroom floor.

“It hurts,” Stan says, and Eddie doesn’t ask whether he means his arm or everything else, just rubs his back gently.

“Richie’s going to come,” Eddie says finally, a last resort. “And I’m not leaving without you and Bev.”

“I’m not your problem, Eddie,” Stan says. “And you’re trying so hard and you did so fucking well, but you can’t fix everything!”

“Fuck that,” Eddie snaps, putting his hands on Stan’s clammy face to force him to look at him. “I’m fixing it. You are my number one priority here, okay? I am not letting anything happen to you.”

“Okay,” Stan says dully, and Eddie can tell that nothing is okay at all, but he tells himself it’s baby steps.

Eddie has to stick his hand into the bath to reach the chain so he can pull the plug, and the sensation makes him gag, not that he lets Stan see it. When it drains, he finds the razor that he must have dropped in the act rattling around the bottom, and bins it, making a note to dispose of it as soon as he can.

Stan stays silent the whole time as Eddie strips him out of his wet clothes, the whole thing too awful to be awkward, and helps him into pyjamas, gently maneuvering his arm to prevent as much pain as possible. He washes his face for him as well, knowing that he’s damp with sweat and he won’t be able to sleep if it’s not clean.

Stan gets into bed very carefully about an hour after Eddie had broken through the door. He’s not seriously hurt, Eddie is confident of that now, but he still feels like he’s holding all the pieces of his friend together, and if he lets go, he’ll shatter.

He climbs in next to Stan, squishing their bodies together in a way that isn’t comfortable as much as it’s comforting. 

“Eddie-”

“I’m not risking you sneaking off again if I fall asleep,” Eddie tells him, lying down properly and feeling Stan’s ragged breaths through his thin shirt.

“I found Vic,” Stan says eventually, speaking into the darkness instead of Eddie. “When the search parties went out, I was the first person to-”

Eddie says nothing, just shifts enough that Stan will know he’s awake and listening.

“I still have nightmares,” Stan continues. “And when you came in, I thought it was just a cycle. That I was going to take all my misery about him and just hand it straight on to you. So I stopped. I didn’t want to leave it with you, I just wanted to take it with me.”

“I’m glad you stopped,” Eddie offers. “That’s not the whole story, is it?”

“Just the end of it,” Stan replies, drowsy. “I did something bad.”

He doesn’t say anything else, and Eddie doesn’t ask, just holds onto him until his breathing is slow and steady. He doesn’t think Stan is capable of doing something terrible, and by all accounts he was the victim in their cabin right up until Vic walked into the woods and never came back.

The next morning, the bell wakes them up still close, holding onto each other like survivors of a shipwreck in the debris. There’s nothing intimate about it, Eddie thinks, as he gets up and finds himself clean clothes that aren’t stained with blood or sweat, and he doesn’t lock the bathroom door when he goes in there to change, just stands out of view and breathes through his mouth to avoid the smell that’s lingered overnight. It’s just kind of tragic.

Stan dresses himself too, miserably picking out a long-sleeved shirt even though the weather is hot, preparing to face a day he didn’t plan on seeing.

“We could run,” Eddie tells him before they leave. “Ask them to take us to a hospital and make a break for it in the parking lot.”

It’s only half a joke suggestion.

“Not without Bev,” Stan says softly, then sighs. “Shit, Bev.”

“She’ll help you,” Eddie promises. “We’ll get through this, and Richie will come.”

When Bev walks into the cafeteria for breakfast, she picks up on the wrongness of everything immediately.

“Oh shit,” she says, dropping into her seat and quickly checking no one is within earshot. “What _ happened _to you two?!”

“Rough night,” Eddie says vaguely, very much wishing the three of them could go outside right now.

Stan reaches up to massage his temples, and in the action his sleeve slips back, so the edge of Eddie’s scrappy makeshift bandage is visible. He seems to realise straight away, dropping his arms self-consciously back to the table.

Bev goes pale.

“What happened?” Her voice is low and shaky. “Stan, what’s that?”

Stan pushes food around his plate with his fork, not answering. He’s not holding his knife. Eddie had seen him pick it up earlier, then wince at the strain on his arm as he tried to use it. It’s discarded by his plate and neither of them have said a word about it.

“_ Stan, _” Bev says again, and her voice is thick.

“Don’t make me say it,” Stan says weakly. He sounds like he would beg if he had the energy. “You know what it is, Bev, just don’t make me say it.”

Bev looks like she’s going to cry if she speaks, so she just reaches across their table and squeezes his other hand.

“We’re talking about this,” she says under her breath. “When we can.”

Stan shrugs listlessly, goes back to playing with his food. When Eddie nudges him, he eats a slice of toast and a few forkfuls of the clumpy scrambled egg. He hasn’t been paying much attention at breakfast before, but Eddie wonders if Stan has been eating properly recently. 

They end up getting to talk sooner than they had anticipated. Robert has no proof of anything, but he must have noticed the missing cigarettes and how closely their group sticks together, because the three of them are on washing up duty and left alone in the kitchen.

“Were you really gonna do it?” Bev asks when the cafeteria has cleared out and there’s no chance of being overheard.

“I don’t know,” Stan says quietly. “Maybe?” 

He’s standing in the corner after Eddie had insisted that he is absolutely not going anywhere near the dirty water or plates whilst his arm is healing. He hasn’t really put up much of a fight, but he looks like he wants to help.

“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Bev whispers, looking a tiny bit hurt behind all the worry. “I knew things were bad, but shit, Stan-”

“I’m sorry,” Stan tells her. 

“Don’t be,” she says, and wraps him in a tight hug, carefully avoiding his arm. The shirt really isn’t a good enough bandage at all, and Eddie thinks about how he might be able to get a real one in the office as he watches Bev hold Stan’s shaking frame and rub his back, whispering words he can’t hear.

He scrubs the plates until his hands are raw and painful. 

“Okay, _ you, _” Bev says eventually, turning back to point at Eddie, “Do not let him out of your sight unless he’s with me.”

“I can hear you,” Stan points out. 

“I know, I was just getting to you,” Bev says, her casual tone strained. “And Stan, if you need help, you tell one of us, okay?”

The kitchen is quiet, except for the sound of the running tap, and Eddie thinks he might hate that noise now. It’s making his skin itch.

“Yeah,” Stan says. “Okay. Thank you.” Then, after a pause: “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry,” Bev tells him. “Really, Stan. You don’t ever have to say it.”

Stan isn’t really himself. He’s going through the motions, saying the things that will make them feel better, but unless he’s answering a direct question, he isn’t really talking. 

He barely says a word for the rest of the day, and Eddie is thankful that it’s almost entirely whole group activities, or at least all the boys together, so that he can stay by him.

They are going to have some serious fucking co-dependency issues by the end of this, he thinks.

*

“Is your arm okay?” Bev asks him that evening. She’s sitting on Stan’s bed with both of them, one leg tucked under her and one pointing out to jab Eddie’s side.

“What?” Eddie asks, frowning. “Mine?”

He’s kneeling on the pillow, using gauze to properly wrap Stan’s arm up. Bev had sent Betty to ask Lisa for “girl stuff” (Eddie had blushed embarrassingly at that and she’d smacked him) and had raided the first-aid kit downstairs whilst she was busy.

Bev had cried when she’d seen the wound. Stan had just looked at it with an unreadable expression.

“You’re holding it weird,” she says, and when she jabs him in the shoulder with her toes, he winces. “Eddie!”

“It’s _ fine, _” he says, although he had looked at it a bit obsessively earlier, and the bruise is dark and horrible. “I hurt it a bit on the door last night.”

“He broke the lock,” Stan murmurs, fingers playing with the edge of the bandage in a stiff pattern. Tapping his index finger twice against the edge, then trailing his middle finger across the cuff, then doing it again. “I hope it’s not troubling you.”

“The door got the worst of it,” Eddie reassures him, which isn’t strictly true, but like hell he’s giving Stan something else to worry about.

Stan doesn’t reply, just goes back to pulling on a thread. His eyebrows are furrowed with a guilty expression.

“There is something we need to talk about,” Bev says finally. “Room checks are coming up.”

“Room checks?” Eddie frowns.

“They say it’s just to check we’re tidy but they’re looking for anything they can pin on us,” Bev explains. “Cigarettes, journals and drawings, that stuff. And you currently have a pile of bloody clothes and tissues in your bathroom.”

“Oh shit,” Stan groans. “They won’t like that at all.”

“They won’t know,” Bev says calmly. “We’re getting rid of everything tonight.”

Bev has a plan. Bev always has a plan. Eddie has known her for about a week and a half now, and he knows that she is always scheming. She has an emergency exit route for every room, an excuse for anywhere she might be caught, and a million different places she knows she won’t be found. Eddie prefers not to think about why she might operate that way, and just appreciates the general badassery that is Beverly Marsh.

This is why, half an hour later, he is standing in the woods that are technically still on camp grounds and staring down at the pile of bloody clothes in the dirt.

“You sure no one’ll notice the smoke?” Eddie asks. “We could just leave it here.”

“Someone would find it,” Bev replies. “Eventually.”

She flicks her lighter on, and Eddie can see anger and sadness and fear brimming in her eyes in the firelight. 

“You wanna do the honours, Stan?”

Stan takes it silently, and Eddie worries for a second about whether it’s a good idea to give him anything that’s not totally harmless, but Stan just kneels and sets light to the shirt sleeve, then the tissues.

As the flames lick up the clothes, they all stand in deathly silence. At some point, in the late night chill, they end up huddled together, Eddie tucked into Stan’s good arm and Bev’s head on his shoulder.

“We have to get out of here,” Bev says softly. “We have to fucking go.”

“Richie’s coming,” Eddie replies. “He told me he was coming.”

“And how long will that be?!” Bev asks, her voice rising. “It’s a week’s drive with no delays, assuming he left as soon as you put the phone down! We have no idea when he’s coming, Eddie! How is he getting here? What’s the weather like? Will he have room for two more people?”

“I-”

“I want to believe in him. Of course I do. But he’s not coming here for me or Stan, because he doesn’t know us and we don’t know him. What are we supposed to do? We can’t wait here, Stan is-” Bev takes a deep, shaky breath. “Stan is not well, and he needs help, so-”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here!” Stan snaps. “Where are we supposed to go? Is the plan to get me committed? At least I’d have a roof over my head?”

“No,” Bev closes her eyes. “I don’t know. We could go to my aunt maybe, or even down to Maine by ourselves. I’m just done waiting it out. I can’t bear this place any longer.”

“How are we supposed to get there?” Eddie sighs. “Steal a car? We’d be arrested, and probably dumped straight back here.”

“They’d put us in isolation,” Stan says distantly, eyes still lit up by the fire. “Probably break the eighteen plus rule as well. Vic said they made him so ill he thought he would die.”

“Not everything he told you was true, Stan,” Bev says gently.

“That was,” Stan asserts. “I could see it. And he didn’t always lie. We had our moments.”

“Stop that,” Bev tells him. “Look, we can figure something out. Do you want to get out of here or not?”

“I’m waiting for Richie,” Eddie insists. “Richie will come.”

“Stan?” Bev asks.

Stan shrugs helplessly, looking anxious.

“I believe in Richie,” Eddie says gently, keen not to upset him further but determined to get his point across. “Do you?”

Stan meets his eyes.

“I believe in you,” he says eventually. “I want to wait for Richie.”

Eddie could hug him, but he’s afraid he’ll break.

Bev sighs like she thinks they’re making a mistake, but she doesn’t argue.

“Okay,” she says. “We wait for Richie. But if he’s not here in a few weeks, Plan B. B is for Bev.”

“Deal,” Eddie says, and Stan nods along without much heart.

_ Come on Richie, _ he thinks to himself. _ Please hurry. _

* * *

The night that Eddie calls him, Richie doesn’t sleep a wink.

He hadn’t been sleeping anyway, his face was stinging and he was already spiralling thinking about Eddie in one of those places, but he might have been able to drift off eventually if Eddie hadn’t reached out like a spirit from beyond the veil of Derry.

He’s still sitting bolt upright in bed the next morning, running over every word so he doesn’t forget a single syllable.

Eddie is in California. All the way across the goddamn country. Richie wants to look up the weather there, has a weird urge to know if Eddie is cold, because he always gets cold in bed in Derry and he hasn’t got the slipper socks that Richie bought him last winter there with him. He’d thought it was a sweet, thoughtful gift, immediately upstaged by Ben giving everyone scarves he had knitted himself. Fucking _ Ben. _

This would never have happened if Ben had fallen in love with a guy, because he would have whisked him away to some magical secluded spot with flowers and music instead of macking on him in his bedroom with his homophobic mother walking around.

Wallowing isn’t going to achieve anything. Eddie doesn’t need him to wallow, he needs him to get off his fucking ass and do something.

At 6am exactly, the earliest he feels it’s possibly socially acceptable for him to be up and not get caught by his parents, he’s packing a bag in his room. His parents are fairly deep sleepers, and his mom wears earplugs anyway to deal with his dad’s snoring, so he thinks he can get away with it. If he’s caught, he can pass the bag off as for a day trip down to the quarry.

“What on earth happened to your face?”

Ah. He had forgotten about that.

His dad is standing in the doorway, blinking blearily at him. His face is creased with sleep and concern, and he’s holding a pillow for some reason.

“You gonna smother me with that?” Richie asks.

“I thought the noises might be an intruder,” his dad says. “Not sure what I was gonna do with this. Rich, kid, what happened?”

“It’s fine,” Richie tells him hastily, gently touching the swelling around his eye. “Hockstetter again.”

“When will they expel that boy?!” His dad looks incredulous. “We can’t keep just letting this happen! Where did he find you?”

“I found him,” Richie says grimly. Then, remembering the most important thing he’s supposed to be telling his dad: “I know where Eddie is.”

“The phone rang in the middle of the night,” his dad says. “I thought I dreamt that.”

“No, that was Eds,” Richie says, feeling the frantic edge start to surface in his voice. “Dad, he’s stuck in a fucking conversion therapy camp. In California.”

“Sonia,” his dad almost growls, not even commenting on Richie’s language. “She would do something like that. I’m so sorry, kid.”

“We have to do something,” Richie exclaims. “I have to- I have to go and get him, he needs me.”

‘Rich, you can’t.” His dad’s voice is painfully gentle. “You’re sixteen, how are you gonna get there?”

“Buy me a plane ticket,” he suggests. “And one back for Eddie, I’m sure you could find some we could afford. I’d hitchhike, it’d be fine, and I could get food from diners and stuff, or I could take stuff that won’t expire with me. Remember when you took me camping and we made the pasta in the little pot? I could just take like, loads of pasta, and cook it on the road like those explorers on TV-”

“Richie,” He’s cut off quickly. “You are not hitchhiking around Cali with a backpack full of pasta. That’s obviously insane.”

“So help me! You could drive me, or Mom could pretend to be Sonia and get Eddie pulled out and sent back to Derry.” It strikes him that Eddie might not want to be dragged away without these Stan and Beverly people, but he’s feeling desperate.

“I don’t think it’s as easy as a fake phone call,” his dad says gently. “And we can’t just leave work like that. Or buy plane tickets. We don’t have the money.” 

“We can’t just leave him!” Richie cries. “I promised him! I said I was coming to get him!”

“I don’t know what to tell you-"

“I _ promised _!” Richie half shouts, his voice cracking. “What am I supposed to do, just leave him there ‘til he kills himself?”

“We’ll talk to Sonia,” his dad says, clearly trying to soothe him at this point. “See if we can make some kind of deal to bring him home.”

There is absolutely no way Sonia will listen to a word they say.

“She’s not even here!” Richie exclaims. “And even if she was, what would you say? What would change her mind? Hey, my son is in love with your son, maybe you could pull him out of the goddamn nightmare straight camp you’ve sent him to so they can hang out and do everything you hate?!”

_ In love with. _

If his dad notices this phrasing, he doesn’t push any further, just sighs sort of sadly. He looks like he wants to say something else, but before he can say whatever it is, the house phone rings.

“I’ll get that,” he murmurs, slipping past his dad before he can say it. “It’s probably a cold caller. I like winding them up.”

“Do your thing,” his dad says, faintly amused. “We’ll never be scammed as long as you live here.”

“Hello?” Richie says, picking up the phone and suddenly being struck by the thought that it might be Eddie again, returning to the office to reach out so they can talk, so he can tell him that he’s okay, so they can figure out what to do.

He’s so wrapped up in the thought that it has to be Eddie again that he’s almost surprised when Ben answers.

“Hi, Rich,” he says, sounding a little on edge. “Listen, I need to tell you something but I need you to promise not to do something insane.”

“That’s not a good start, Ben,” he says, pacing as much as he can without dropping the phone. “Eddie called last night, I talked to him.”

“What?!” Ben sounds stunned, clearly immediately forgetting whatever it was he was about to say. “Oh my god, is he alright? Where is he?”

“California,” Richie hisses. “We were right, he’s at fucking straight camp. Managed to sneak into the office and call me.”

“Holy hell.”

“Yeah,” Richie sighs. “Ben, I’m freaking out, he called at like 2am and he sounds so tired.”

“Maybe because it’s 2am?”

“No, not that kind of tired! And there’s a time difference anyway, it was like 11pm there and Eddie’s barely ever asleep by then. He just sounds different. He sounds _ sad _.”

“Richie-”

“He hung up on me when I was trying to tell him I love him,” Richie admits, and his voice cracks on the last word and he can’t force out the explanation that Eddie had to go anyway, even if he could have waited five more seconds.

“I’m coming over,” Ben says quickly. “Stay at home, okay?”

“Right,” Richie mutters. “What were you gonna tell me?”

“I think I should tell you in person,” Ben says quickly, sounding anxious. “I’ll be there soon, I just have to check on Mom.”

“See you,” Richie says faintly, then puts the phone down and leans his head against the wall. When Eddie had called, he had clutched onto it for a while, sitting on the floor beside the side table in case it had been a false alarm and Eddie called back. Now, he’s so exhausted that he just stands there, trying to fit all these puzzle pieces together to see if he can still piece together an Eddie who is the one who kissed him back.

His dad makes him a smoothie, smiles when Richie tells him Ben is dropping by. He likes Ben, because he has a bizarrely comprehensive knowledge of radio show hosts and they keep watching the same (painfully boring) documentaries. His mom likes him because he brings food and says he likes her cardigans.

Richie’s mind wanders to Stan and Beverly. They’re nothing more than names without faces, but the warmth in Eddie’s voice when he mentioned them had been telling enough. He hopes they’re looking after Eddie, that they don’t laugh off his anxieties or tell him his mother is just trying to look out for him. Eddie deserves good things, good people to surround himself with, especially in a place as terrible as the one he’s in now.

He doesn’t know Stan and Beverly, but he sends a silent message to them now to be good and kind, and he hopes they’re okay too. Eddie takes it hard when his friends are hurting. Richie thinks he must have fought someone for every single one of them, taken all of them to the hospital or patched up wounds on his own, bothered them to take better care of themselves.

He’s still deep in thought when Ben arrives.

“Hi,” he says as he opens the door to him. “We need to go to California.”

“How?” Ben asks, and Richie wants to hug him for not saying no straight away. “There’s no way we’re getting on a plane. You still owe me for the bagels last month.”

“I will pay you back,” Richie waves a hand. “Not important. I think we drive. Eddie will understand.”

“Don’t worry about it, I was just making a point,” Ben says quickly, looking guilty. “We don’t have the money for this.”

“We’ll scrape it up!” Riche says. “Ben, you know we have to.”

“Of course,” Ben replies. “But we can’t just _ go. _”

“Then we start planning right now,” Richie tells him. “We might have to do odd jobs, make some money somehow. Doesn’t your mom have loads she’s supposed to give you?”

“That’s my dad’s money,” Ben says. “No idea when she’ll let me anywhere near that.”

“Right,” Richie sighs. “Sorry, Ben. I just- I don’t know how long we have before it’s too much for him there.”

“Is he okay?” Ben asks. “How much did he say?”

“Barely anything. He called it a therapy place, and said he had friends who helped him sneak in. And he said we didn’t have to come, that was ridiculous, but I don’t think he meant it, and he hung up when-”

He’s speeding up, too fast for Ben to keep up with, he’s sure, but he doesn’t know how to slow himself down. 

Eddie knows how to slow him down.

_ “Rich,” Eddie had said, looking dismayed as Richie paced up and down the waiting room. “Richie, stop pacing, you’re gonna make me go crazy.” _

_ “I can’t,” Richie had muttered. “We’ve been here for fucking hours.” _

_ “We’ve been here for forty five minutes,” Mike had pointed out gently. “Rich, people faint all the time.” _

_ Mike had been worried too obviously, Ben had dropped like a rock out of nowhere in the middle of the street, but Bill and Richie had both been losing their heads, so someone had to act normal. _

_ “I can’t sit down,” Riche had repeated, struggling to articulate how his whole body had felt like a live wire, powerful currents running through it. “Mike, I can’t.” _

_ “R-Richie,” Bill had started, and they had watched in vague dismay as he tried to force out a sentence that wouldn’t come. He never could manage much more than their names when he was upset. _

_ “I need to get high,” Richie had said in response, wringing his hands, and Eddie had hopped to his feet. _

_ “Okay, no,” he had said, placing his hands on Richie’s upper arms and steering him to look at him even though he was a good deal shorter than him and had to reach up. “Richie, look at me. Breathe like I’m breathing.” _

_ Then he had gently manoeuvred him out into a corridor, away from Mike and Bill’s eyes, and they had stood there in the empty quiet, Richie holding onto Eddie like a life preserver. _

_ “I need to do something with my hands,” Richie had said weakly, clenching and unclenching his fists. “I feel all itchy.” _

_ “Do NOT make a joke about my mom right now,” Eddie had cut in immediately. “I’m serious, Rich. Now is not the time.” _

_ “Eds-” _

_ “I’m about to put _ ** _you_ ** _ in the hospital,” Eddie had grumbled. “Look, if it’ll make you stop pacing..” _

_ Eddie had taken one of Richie’s hands and put it gently on his own head, and Richie had stared at him, feeling Eddie’s soft hair under his fingers. _

_ Eddie had said nothing, but when they returned to the waiting room, they had sat side by side and Richie had twisted Eddie’s hair around his fingers, making tiny braids and loops until Mrs Hanscom had told them it was just heat exhaustion and Ben was fine, when he had let his hands drop and just laughed at how Eddie’s hair was sticking up. _

_ They had never talked about that again, and Ben had profusely apologised for scaring them all. _

_ “I was not scared,” Richie had proclaimed loudly, draped over Ben in his bed. “Eds was the one going nutso.” _

_ Eddie had flipped him off and laughed, but he hadn’t told the truth. _

Eddie isn’t here now, so he has to put on his big boy pants and sort himself out for once. 

Ben is here though, looking at him with those huge doe eyes, and even if he’s not the best help when it comes to grounding Richie, Richie remembers how worried he had been that day, and how, whatever Eddie is to him, wherever he is now, Ben is still one of his best friends and he’s right here, and maybe he’s been neglecting him a little.

He buries his face in his hands.

“Oh, Richie,” Ben says sadly. “We’ll go there, we will. We just need some time.”

“I know,” Richie replies, looking up and giving him a shaky smile. “Thanks, Benny. What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Oh,” Ben’s face goes dark and troubled, which looks all wrong on him. “Like I said, you have to not freak out.”

“Ben.”

“Sonia’s back,” Ben says, then grimaces like he’s just felt the kickback of a gun, which is fitting, because Richie feels a bit like he’s been shot. “I saw her car late last night. She was alone, obviously.”

“Holy fuck,” Richie replies, feeling all the panic in his chest twist into something colder, harder, sharper. “She’s back at home?”

“Yep,” Ben says cautiously. “I would have called yesterday but it was so late and I thought you could use the sleep, but- well, look how that turned out.” He smiles weakly.

“We’re going over there,” Richie tells him. “She likes you, I’m gonna use your body as a shield.”

“Well, it’ll certainly cover you,” Ben says glumly, looking down at his figure, then seems to shake himself out of it. “Are we calling the others?”

Richie thinks for a second.

“Nah,” he says. “The fewer the better, probably. This is a two-man mission.”

Ben seems a little surprised, but they go out to his car (a tiny, scrappy thing that absolutely will not do for rescue missions but belonged to his dad once upon a time) and set off for the Kaspbrak household. He doesn’t feel much like referring to it as Eddie’s home.

“So, you and Eddie?” Ben asks eventually, a little hesitant.

“You don’t think it’s weird, do you?” Richie asks, looking down at his feet.

“I don’t think it’s weird,” Ben says. “I’d love to love someone like that.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Richie teases. “Are there many gay poets?”

Ben turns in his seat, raises an eyebrow.

“They’re all gay, Richie. All of them.”

“Damn, really?”

“Yep. Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde-“ Ben blushes a little. “They, well you know-“

“You can say it,” Richie urges, nudging his arm gently. “Say the fuck word, Ben.”

“Fine. They totally fucked. Does that make you happy?”

“Very happy indeed, Benny boy,” Richie tells him. “Now we just need Eddie and I’ll be the happiest man alive.”

“I take back what I said about you not being weird,” Ben huffs, then slows down to park outside the house.

Sonia’s car is in the driveway, and it’s sparkling clean. It makes Richie burn up with a strange kind of rage that she can go and dump Eddie in hell and then go and get her car washed of any trace of him.

“Richie,” Ben says warningly before they get out. “Don’t say anything stupid.”

“You know I can’t promise that,” Richie tells him, and Ben just sighs and gets out of the car. 

Ben rings the doorbell. Richie stands just behind him and tries not to glower.

When Sonia opens the door, her face darkens at the sight of them, and Richie is sure his does the same.

“If you two are here for Eddie, he’s away. Being treated.”

“Treated?!” Richie blurts out before he can stop himself. “What kind of _ treatment _-”

“You should know,” she hisses back. “If your mother wasn’t such trashy lowlife, she’d send you there too. You dragged my boy down with you, you degenerate little-”

“Stop!” Ben places himself between Richie and Sonia before Richie can leap over the threshold. “Don’t talk to Richie like that.” His voice is shaking. Richie has never seen him actually snap at any adult before.

“I always thought you were such a nice boy,” Sonia says to him, sounding sincerely disappointed. “You shouldn’t run with these boys, Ben, dear.”

“They’re my friends,” Ben says stiffly. “Listen, we just wanted to know if you’d had any updates on Eddie. We miss him.”

She sniffs.

Richie tries very hard not to say anything that will stop her from speaking.

“The Centre called two days ago,” she says reluctantly. “He’s showing some resistance, no doubt thanks to your attitudes, but they think he’ll take to it well. He’s made some interesting breakthroughs in therapy and isn’t making scenes anymore.”

The idea of Eddie not fighting this with all his might makes Richie’s heart break. Eddie is such a goddamn fighter. _ Though he be but little he is fierce, _Ben had quoted once, grinning over the top of his little scriptbook, and Richie had thought it was just about the most Eddie thing ever. Eddie is so fucking fierce that if he’s really not fighting back, they’ve already broken something in him that goes right down to his core. Whatever it is that makes Eddie Eddie (or Eds or Eddie Spaghetti or Doctor K) might not be there anymore, or might be shattered into pieces, and he doesn’t know how to handle that.

“Anything else?” Ben pushes, eyes flickering towards Richie, concern shining in them.

“Well,” Sonia seems to have let her guard down somewhat. She wants to talk about this, Richie realises. Wants to show off what a good mother she is, how she’s saved her son from the eternal damnation that is loving Richie. “They want to change his roommate. They’re worried he’s too close to the boy he’s with. You can’t be too careful with boys like that, of course.”

Richie isn’t quite sure how to handle this information. What is ‘too close’? He knows it’s completely inappropriate to be jealous in a situation like this, and he’s well aware that he’s probably a horrible person, but a tiny part of him is jealous. He wants to be the one comforting Eddie at night, sticking by him all day to offer support. This boy is obviously not feeding him the camp’s bullshit if they want to separate them. He wonders if it’s Stan, if Stan is falling for Eddie. It would be hard not to, he thinks. Eddie is Eddie.

At the same time, he doesn’t want them to separate them. If he’s bringing Eddie comfort, whatever kind that may be, he hopes they stick together through it all. He just wants Eddie to be okay, whatever that might mean now.

“I think you fucked up,” Richie says, ignoring Ben’s eyes on him. “I think you’re a terrible mother.” 

“How dare you-”

“Eddie was fine the way he was! He was kind, and clever, and funny, and he was happy! Why was that not good enough for you? How can you be disappointed in him when he’s as wonderful as he is? Have you seen some of the _ fucking _kids in this town?! Patrick Hockstetter gave me these bruises! Greta Keene spits on your son when she sees him! Hell, I go running around getting into trouble without telling anyone, and I scratch up my dad’s car and he never even raises his voice at me. So what made you think anything about Eddie needed changing? When has he been anything but perfect?”

“He is _ sick _,” Sonia growls, and her face is turning an unnatural colour. Richie wonders if this is what Eddie saw when she was bearing down on him in the minutes after they kissed. “You will not be allowed to see him again, especially if you treat your elders like that. My god, your mother is a disgrace. Women like that should be committed.”

“Leave my mother out of this!” Richie shouts back.

“Get away from here,” she says suddenly, so furiously angry that she is quiet and still. “Do not come back. Ben, I’ll be calling your mother.”

“Good luck with that,” Ben says, somehow still sounding controlled. “Richie, we got what we came for.”

Sonia slams the door with such force that the windows rattle, and Richie and Ben go to sit in the car in stunned silence.

“Well, that went horribly,” Ben says.

“Were you expecting it to go well?” Richie asks.

“Good point. I’d hoped for fewer insults. From her, not you.” He smiles wryly. “She deserved everything you said. Nice speech.”

“Thanks,” Richie says weakly. “I guess we’re not getting him back the diplomatic way, are we?”

“Summer jobs, here we come,” Ben sighs. “Mike won’t have time, he already does everything on the farm for free. And I don’t know about Bill, he does so much with Georgie.”

They both wince at the memory of Bill’s exchange with his parents.

“Guess it’s on you and me, Haystack,” Richie says. “Maybe we’ll get a good rep from it.”

*

Ben is right. Mike and Bill can’t work, so he and Richie throw themselves hard into odd jobs around town. Richie is washing cars and mowing lawns, Ben is walking dogs and doing cleanup at the library. Almost all library jobs are voluntary, but he’s apparently being paid because his specific duties take so long.

“I never thought I’d hate being in the library,” he tells Richie one night when they’re both lying down in the clubhouse, exhausted. “How much money do we have?”

“Not enough yet,” Richie sighs. “I don’t know how much longer it’s going to take.”

They’ve been working for two weeks, which means Eddie has been gone for three, and they haven’t heard a word since. Richie jumps every time the phone rings, but it’s never been Eddie.

“Another problem,” Ben says miserably. “I’m running out of jobs to do. The library takes turns hiring people, and lots of dog owners are back from holidays now, or they just got time off work.”

“Same,” Richie says. “There’s only so many cars and lawns.”

For an awful few hours, that feels like the end of it. They’re stuck again with a bunch of money they don’t want to do anything with, except get to California, and it’s not enough to get them further than Chicago.

Mike is pulling his weight too. He’s spent the last two weeks (painfully apologetic about not being able to join them in working) fixing up the pick-up truck to make it capable of the journey. It looks like a brand new vehicle, one that Eddie wouldn’t even complain about the hazards of.

They barely hear anything from Bill until that evening, three weeks and two days after Eddie had vanished, when he bursts into the clubhouse meeting in a flurry of urgency.

“Bill?” Mike sits up. “What’s up?”

“Pack your b-bags,” Bill gasps. “Remember that wooden b-boat Georgie got for his birthday?”

“Um,” Richie says, struggling to see where this is going. “Yeah?”

“He found out that we need m-m-money to go to Eddie, and he gave it to me. To sell. Because it’s worth fucking hundreds!”

“Oh my god,” Ben whispers, sitting up. 

“You sold Georgie’s birthday present?” Mike frowns.

“He says he d-doesn’t like it anyway. Mine are b-better.” Bill grins. “We just can’t _ ever _tell my dad.”

“Holy shit!” Richie yells, and shoots up to wrap Bill in a crushing hug. “Your brother is a hero!”

“He thinks we’re going to v-visit Eddie at summer camp,” Bill says. “But that’s b-beside the point. We can _ go. _”

The four of them are on their feet in the clubhouse, eyes wide and blood thrumming through their veins.

“Tomorrow morning,” Richie tells them. “Meet at Mike’s at 7am. We’re going to get Eddie back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me vs being too nervous to post this. i hope this chapter was okay (i feel weird saying enjoyable lmao) and that chapter 9 will be up soon! i'm happy to (politely) discuss any of this content in the comments or on my tumblr @grumpystan. 
> 
> https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/ (US)  
https://www.samaritans.org/ (UK)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontations, secrets, and disasters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter 9! i've plotted out the remainder of this fic and i think it's going to come out at approximately 13 chapters. i'm not sure how the next few intense weeks and christmas are going to affect my update schedule, but i'll try and keep it fairly frequent.
> 
> warnings for this chapter are: mental illness, antisemitism, gaslighting, references to the previous suicide attempt, self harm, homophobic violence, a non-graphic suicide attempt, withdrawal, multiple allusions to possible disordered eating, body image issues, homophobic slurs, ableist language, cruel language about a suicide attempt, threats of knife violence, discussion of a previous suicide, mild violence, suicidal behaviour, disturbing camp treatment that is not graphic, parental neglect, internalised homophobia, disturbing imagery in a dream (canon-compliant)
> 
> it's not quite as awful as that makes it look! i'm just covering all my bases

Eddie is staring at his reflection when Stan comes back in from Individual Counselling.

“Do I look different?”

It’s become oddly important to him in the last three days, since they marked two weeks of no sign of Richie. He’s been here for three weeks now, and he’s obsessing a little over how much can change in three weeks.

“Your hair’s getting curly,” Stan says, looking him up and down. “Just at the ends.”

“I was supposed to get it cut,” Eddie tells him, and thinks that it feels weird to remember that he ever had plans for the days after Richie kissed him. In his head, it’s a D-Day now, an explosive event that stopped time on either side of it. “Not that there’s anything wrong with curls!”

Stan just stares back at him. He might have laughed once, he seems like the kind of person that would enjoy pretending to be offended by the comment, but now he just looks mournful. He hasn’t been the same since the night in the bathroom. Eddie feels a little like Stan is haunting him, but when they share a bed on the nights that neither of them can sleep peacefully, he can feel his heart beating beneath fragile skin and bone.

“How was counselling?” Eddie asks eventually.

“Same as ever,” Stan replies. “Lisa tried to talk to me about religion again, so I told her my father killed Christ.”

He cracks a grin, and Eddie thinks that the old Stan is still in there, at least a little bit, even if he’s hidden himself away for safekeeping.

The joke makes him smile too, and it feels a little unpracticed on his face.

“Bev wants to talk to us,” Stan says softly. “About the plan.”

“I’m not surprised Richie hasn’t come yet,” Eddie says defensively, even though it’s a bit of a lie. “You can’t just up and go to California.”

“It’s been nearly three weeks.”

“He’s coming!” Eddie snaps, and Stan’s face sinks a little. “Sorry.”

“Leaving doesn’t mean never seeing him again,” Stan says. “We just get somewhere safe and then we contact him.”

“He’s going to think I don’t trust him! That this place has changed me!”

“Eddie,” Stan says. “Why are you so worried about him thinking you’ve changed?”

Stan definitely knows the answer to that question, and so does Eddie, but it’s gone unspoken in this room for the last few weeks.

The truth is that he is changing. Maybe not in the way that the Centre wants him to, but he’s stopped fighting things so viciously, and he’s giving them a little more every time they poke at him. In the last group therapy session, he had vented for a few minutes about his mother, and been horrified to be met with applause from Robert. In his own counselling, he had reluctantly conceded that Richie sometimes pushed the boundaries in their friendship, although he refused to say it made him love him any less.

They think he’s breaking through, he thinks he’s breaking down, and he doesn’t want to end up like Stan with his sad eyes and pale face and the ugly raised red scar on his right wrist that will never fade.

(And, as they’d discovered in the days following the bathroom, the tiny circular burn marks from cigarettes in neat lines on his legs.)

“I just want to give it a little longer. Can’t Bev wait?”

“Well,” Stan says, steeping his fingers. “It’s her birthday in two weeks. Well, and a few days. She doesn’t want to have it here.”

“Oh,” Eddie mumbles, feeling terrible. “Seventeen?”

“You’re the baby of the group,” Stan says. “Yeah, I think she has a crazy pipe dream of a birthday on the road without this place, or her dad.”

“I don’t blame her,” Eddie sighs. “Why now? Why didn’t you two ever run off before?”

“It’s easier with three people. And we didn’t have anywhere to go. Bev’s never going near her dad again, and  _ my  _ dad is pretty insistent I can’t be in town. It stirs up too much controversy.”

Eddie knows the details of Stan’s “straight camp origin story” (his words) now. Stan is the only one of them who ever came out, only to be met with such awful response that he’s mostly here so an angry mob won’t burn down the synagogue.

“I still think Richie’s on his way,” Eddie says, and Stan looks like he doesn’t have the energy to fight it anymore, just lies down on the bed with his face hidden in the blankets. His arm isn’t bandaged anymore, and Eddie can see the end of the scar poking out of his shirt.

“I think he wants to,” Stan says listlessly. “Maybe he got grounded or something.”

“Maggie and Went wouldn’t do that. They’re the best. And they hate my mom so much they’d probably let him go out of spite.”

Stan isn’t listening. He’s sat up suddenly, straight up on his knees like he’s praying, but he’s staring out of the window at something Eddie can’t see.

Eddie doesn’t have time to ask before he hears shouting outside, and the sound of feet running past their cabin.

He and Stan take one look at each other then run out after them.

“All of you, back! There’s nothing to see here.” Robert is shooing them all away, standing by the main building with his face very pale. Lisa kneels on the ground next to him, next to what seems to be a heap of clothes.

“Stan?!” Bev calls from across the clearing, and then she’s racing towards them and wrapping Stan in a tight hug, holding on hard. “Oh fuck, I was so worried. I couldn’t see you and I can’t get close-”

“What’s going on?” Eddie cuts in.

“Someone jumped off the roof,” Bev whispers to them. “Betty saw them but she couldn’t tell who it was, and I thought-”

“Oh,” Stan says faintly, face falling. “No, I’m fine.”

“Shit, who was it?” Eddie really doesn’t want to look, in case they’re dead, or horribly injured, but he has that sick feeling of needing to know. “Are they okay?”

“They’re alive,” Bev says. “I heard them call an ambulance. This has happened before, it’s not that far to fall, but-”

“Oh shit,” Stan cuts her off, clearly realising where she’s going with this. “We’ll be checked again.”

“Could someone please fucking explain to me what you’re talking about?!” Eddie hisses. “What checks, guys?”

“Whenever we have suicides, or suicide attempts here, they call in a bunch of wacko doctors that they approve of to check on all of us for any red flags. Scars, too much weight loss, anything that’ll land them in hot water the next time this happens. The cops make them do it, it’s how this place is still running.”

Stan closes his eyes as Bev speaks, his face pale in the late afternoon light.

“I don’t know what they do if they find anything. But it won’t be good.” Bev runs a hand through her hair. “Eddie, I know you want to wait, but we really have to go.”

“I can’t-”

“Eddie, I know, and I’m sorry, but they  _ cannot  _ find out about Stan.”

Somewhere in the distance, Eddie hears the ambulance wailing. The little groups around them are whispering, and for a brief, terrifying moment, Henry Bowers catches his eye.

Eddie turns to Stan, praying that he’ll have some kind of deus ex machina of an idea that will fix everything, but he just looks sorrowful.

“I’m sorry, Eddie,” he says. “We really do need to go.”

“You don’t have to come,” Bev says gently. “But we wouldn’t like to leave you here. And if we head back to Maine, maybe we’ll meet them along the way?”

“Okay,” Eddie says very quietly, and Stan puts a hand on his back by way of silent apology. “I’ll come, but I want to find him as soon as we can.”

He doesn’t want to leave, wants to trust that Richie will be here soon, but he can’t risk staying for what comes next. He may not have the same terrible scars Stanley does, but he knows he’s too skinny and that withdrawal still shows on his body. These and the ring of bruises on his wrist and the scrapes on his back where Bowers had thrown him against the wall and pinned him there are sure to raise the alarm, and get him into some kind of trouble. If Stan and Bev also disappear, his head will be on the chopping block, he’s sure of it.

So when they load the girl, who is conscious and speaking, into the ambulance (he recognises her face, but can’t quite place her by name) and he and Stan are shooed back to their room with everyone else, Eddie curls up on his bed and doesn’t speak to him.

“I’m really sorry, Eddie,” Stan says. He’s hovering anxiously by the bed, clearly desperate for Eddie not to be mad at him. “It’ll all work out in the end, it’ll just...take longer.”

“I know we have to go,” Eddie whispers. “It’s not just Richie, it’s- this place is safe, sort of. And when I came here, I thought I’d rather be alone in the woods than this, so why am I suddenly so scared to leave? Why would I rather be here than out there with you?”

“The great unknown,” Stan smiles sadly. “I know. I told you in your first week here how I liked the routine. And it’s gonna be scary out there, and I don’t know what’ll happen to us. But we’ll have each other, and all your friends are looking out for us. We’ll find Richie and we’ll be okay.”

Outside, the ambulance is wailing again, getting further away this time. That girl will face hell when she comes back. They will not be here when she comes back.

“Thanks, Stan,” he says. “I guess...this place is getting to me. We really do need to go.”

“Last night in hell,” Stan says gently. “I’m gonna wash, I’m not going out there all grimy.”

“Door open,” Eddie reminds him.

Stan snaps his fingers at him, then points, a little gesture that Eddie has learned means  _ okay, but I think this is dumb. _ Still, better safe than sorry.

“I won’t look!” Eddie teases, though it doesn’t feel like the time for jokes. “Clean up. I’ll pack a bag.”

Stan leaves the door ajar, and Eddie talks to him a bit as he stuffs a few clothes (all he now has to his name) into a bag.

When Stan comes out a little later, freshly scrubbed and fluffy-haired, it’s dark outside and Eddie knows it’s nearly time to go.

He won’t miss this little room. Stan is the only passable thing about it (other than having an en-suite, he supposes ironically) and he will be with him the whole time.

Bev comes to collect them at about 11pm, the same time they had broken into the office and the clock had started ticking for Richie to get here. He hopes Richie won’t blame himself.

It’s not too cold yet, but it will be in the early hours of the morning, so they’re all wrapped in heavy jumpers. Eddie’s wearing one of Stan’s because he hadn’t dreamt he could possibly need one when he had thrown everything into a bag back in Derry. Normally, he’d have packed for every possible eventuality, but he’d been in such a goddamn panic, he’d just grabbed the first clothes he’d seen through his teary eyes.

“We’re gonna take the route we drove in from the airport,” Bev tells them as they trudge into the woods. “The long way around back to the entrance so they don’t see us, then we run like hell to the main road and hope some nice liberal sees us.”

“Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?” Eddie asks. “We could die from exposure out here, catch pneumonia or get hypothermic. Or we could be hit by passing cars or abducted by some fucking creep-”

“Or we could stay there and be tortured,” Bev says flatly. She’s balancing on a log, walking with her arms out on either side. “Eddie, I promise, this is the safer option at the end of the day.”

“It’s still risky.”

“Eddie’s gonna grow up to be a risk analyst,” Stan says dryly. “And he’s gonna hate it.”

“If it’s not in Derry, I’ll take it,” Eddie shoots back.

For a moment they’re all laughing quietly, a tiny second of enjoying each other’s company and forgetting the terrible circumstances, and Eddie is feeling like as long as he’s with his friends, things might work out okay.

“The fuck are you lot doing out here?”

Eddie whips around so fast that he feels the strain in his shoulder as he does it. In the background, he hears Bev and Stan gasp, and the stumble of Bev falling from her log.

“Bowers,” he says miserably, because of course it could never go easily.

“I  _ said,” _ Bowers hisses, his face a strange colour, “What the fuck are you doing out here?”

“Just smoking,” Bev says slowly. “What are  _ you _ doing?”

“ _ I’m  _ just smoking.” Bowers holds up a cigarette pinched between two thin, dirty fingers. “You don’t even have any fags. Well, except Stan and Eddie.”

“How long did it take you to come up with that one, Henry?” Stan snaps. “Look, we won’t tell anyone you were out here if you don’t tell anyone we were.”

“No,” Bowers says simply, and steps forward. “I’m sick of you getting away with fucking everything. Sneaking out here every night, and did you try to off yourself? I can see the fucking scar, you know.”

“Leave him alone!” Eddie hisses. “Back the fuck off.”

“Your boyfriend and I are talking right now, Kaspbrak,” Bowers snarls. He’s so close to Stanley that the shadow of his body covers Stan’s face.

“Fuck you,” Stan spits.

Before Eddie knows what’s happening, Bowers pulls something from his pocket, wields it like a wand, and Eddie sees a blade glinting in the moonlight.

“You’re not the only people who steal here,” he tells them, and Eddie knows it’s a threat.

“Henry-” Bev steps forward, gently pushing Stan away from Bowers as she does.

“Get the fuck back!” Bowers shouts, waving the knife wildly back and forth between the three of them. “I swear I’ll fucking use it!”

“Jesus, Henry, put that down!” Eddie hisses, raising trembling hands in a placatory gesture. “You don’t need to do this.”

“Holy shit, you’re fucking crazy,” Bev breathes, her fingers curling into the back of Eddie’s shirt. “What the fuck.”

“I’ll fucking kill you,” Henry growls.

“Then do it,” Stanley cuts in, and Eddie stares at him in shock as he steps forward, wrapping his soft green jumper around himself. “This is all because of me. You lost Vic because of me. So stop fucking talking about it and do it if it’ll make you feel better!”

“Stanley!” Bev whispers, her face horrified. “Stan, stop!”

“You two should go,” Stan continues, his eyes still fixed on Henry’s. “This can’t carry on forever.”

“Stan, come on.” Eddie pulls on his sleeve, fingers catching on the holes in his sweater. “Please.”

“I’m serious,” Stan says coldly. “If you can bring yourself to use it, you should. Put us both out of our misery.”

“Stop!” Bev begs again, tears spilling from her eyes.

“You killed Vic,” Henry chokes out, and Eddie watches in silent astonishment, heart slamming against his ribcage.

“Henry, knock it off,” Bev half-shouts. “It’s over! Stan didn’t do anything!”

“But I did,” Stan says softly, stepping forwards again so that the tip of Henry’s knife is resting just between his ribs, snagged in the fabric. “And neither of us are ever moving on until we end this.”

“We have to go,” Eddie says desperately. “Okay? We can act like this never happened.”

Stan is not a killer. He knows Stan is not a killer.

Stan did something bad. Something so bad it still haunts him, and it drove him to a terrible breaking point.

What happened the night Vic died?

“I never wanted Vic to die,” Stan says slowly, eyes flickering to the knife resting between his ribs. “How many times do I have to tell you that I never wanted him to die?”

“Fuck you,” Bowers hisses, and presses the tip of the knife into Stan’s chest again. Eddie feels like he might be sick. “He never would have done it if you hadn’t gotten involved.”

“ _ You  _ got me involved,” Stan whispers. He’s frighteningly calm and resolute. “I didn’t want to be part of it, it’s not my fault we shared a room!”

“ _ All of it  _ is your fault.” Bowers jerks his wrist, and Stan winces. Eddie balls his hands into fists at his sides.

“Maybe.” Stan is staring at Bowers with absolutely nothing at all in his eyes. “Hurry up.”

“Can’t even kill yourself right,” Henry says, and his knuckles are white around the handle of the knife. “Had to ask for help.”

And Eddie hadn’t even noticed her move, but Bev is suddenly in front of him and shoving Henry hard, hard enough that when he falls and his head glances hard off the log she had been standing on, and then he’s just lying there.

“Oh  _ fuck, _ ” Bev whispers. “Oh fuck.”

“Shit,” Eddie moans. “Shit, fuck, shit.”

“Is he alright?” Stan runs shaking hands through his hair. “We can’t just leave him here, guys.”

“We can’t go back!” Bev says shrilly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to knock him out!”

“No, you were protecting me, don’t apologise.” Stan is trembling, but he puts a hand on Bev’s shoulder.

Eddie kneels down next to Henry, and is so relieved to see that he’s still breathing that he nearly passes out right next to him on the ground. However much he hates Henry, the brief moment of fear that they had killed him was the worst feeling he had ever experienced.

“He’s okay,” Eddie murmurs. “But we really can’t leave him here all night with a head injury.”

“He was trying to kill Stan!” Bev says, and it’s not a protest as much as it sounds like she’s processing the last few minutes. She seems to remember what’s just happened then, and turns to him with huge eyes. “Oh, Stan.”

Stan’s shoulders start to shake.

“Stan, why did you  _ say that _ ?” Eddie asks, leaving Henry on the ground, because he doesn’t matter right now, never matters when it’s him or his friends.

“Because he’s right! Vic died because of me!”

“Why do you keep saying that?” Bev cries. “Stan, you didn’t even see him that evening!”

“Yes, I did,” Stan whispers, and Bev frowns. “I didn’t tell you that night because I was so fucking humiliated and then he died and I-”

“What happened?” Bev asks softly. She doesn’t seem mad, but her face is all scrunched up like she doesn’t know what to make of this.

“You’re going to hate me,” Stan chokes. “You won’t be my friend anymore.”

“Stan, don’t be stupid,” Eddie hisses. He knows they need to do something soon- run or get help for Bowers or something, but Stan is spiralling and he knows that someone has to take away the burden of whatever terrible secret he’s been keeping. 

“I was in counselling until like nine that night,” Stan starts, voice trembling. “I was gonna sneak around our cabin and go straight to Bev. Vic never...Vic never told on me when I went out. He was cruel sometimes, but he always had my back.”

“But you went back to the room for something?” Eddie asks.

“I went back,” Stan confirms. “I was just gonna grab my jumper but Vic was in there. And...Henry was there too.”

Eddie and Bev exchange a quick glance. There are about a thousand different emotions on her face, but he can only identify dread.

“They were fooling around...you already knew that, but I mean that night. I usually tried to avoid it, but...y’know. Henry told me to get out.”

“Of your own room?” Eddie frowns.

“He did that sometimes.” Stan shrugs. “But I preferred being kicked out to being in there. Except that night, I’d had  _ enough.  _ I was so fucking mad at him, and counselling was so awful that I told them to shut up.”

He takes a shaky breath, and Eddie squeezes his shoulder.

“Henry just laughed at me, and Vic didn’t even do  _ anything. _ He didn’t say a word to me. And then Henry said if I talked to him like that again, he’d tell the staff I was going out to smoke with you.”

“Asshole,” Bev mutters.

“And then I…” Stan pauses, wipes his eyes. “I said that I’d tell the staff what they were doing first.”

“Oh,  _ Stan _ ,” Bev says. 

“I just wanted him to stop!” Stan sobs. “I was never going to tell anyone, I just wanted him to leave me alone! And I know you hate snitches-”

“I know, I know,” Bev says gently. “Stan, it’s not your fault.”

“Vic was upset, but Henry stormed out and I followed him to see if he was actually gonna tell Robert and Lisa anything. He just went straight back to his room.” Stan sniffs. “And I came to find you.”

“You just said counselling was bad,” Bev murmurs. “Lisa made you pray.”

“That part was true,” Stan says. “That’s why I was already upset. I would never have threatened them otherwise, I’m not like that, I-”

“I know,” Eddie says quietly. It’s a terrible, sordid story, but he can’t blame Stan for a moment of it. “I know, Stan.”

“I went back to our room a few hours later, and he wasn’t there. I don’t know where I thought he  _ was _ , but I was mad and I assumed Henry knew, so I just went to bed. And then I woke up the next morning and he was still gone, even though I usually had to wake him up. So...I went to Robert and told him I didn’t know where Vic was. And they sent out the search parties, and I found him in...in the tree.”

“Goddamn,” Eddie says.

“When I went back to our room after talking to the police, I found a note. Hidden in the little gap between my bed and the wall, so I missed  _ that  _ too.”

“He left a note? What did it say?” Bev frowns.

“It was for me,” Stan says vaguely. “I guess he knew I’d know where to look, that’s where we always hid our stuff, but I probably should have shown someone else, or got it to his parents. But some of it would have landed you in hot water, Bev, and you’d only just got out of Isolation, and it would have been even worse for me.”

“He ratted us out?”

“Sort of,” Stan says. “Not like that. He wouldn’t have done that.”

Eddie wonders to himself why Stan so adamantly defends Vic, if it’s just guilt or if Vic was a truly good person caught up in a chain of falling dominos.

“Jesus,” Bev closes her eyes. “What about the black eye?”

“Henry threw a glass at me when we got put on washing up duty,” Stan sighs. “He hates me. For what I said to Vic, for leaving like that, for not saying anything when he was gone. Vic assumed I was going straight to the staff.”

“Shit,” Eddie murmurs.

“So that’s it. Vic died thinking I was going to turn my back on our deal and throw him to the wolves. And I never did anything to stop him.”

“It’s not your fault.” Eddie is the first to speak after a long pause. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for his decision. You didn’t do anything wrong that night, Stan.”

“I didn’t do  _ anything, _ ” Stan says pointedly. “And I should have. I should have realised he was upset, I should have gone back to talk to him, I should have told someone he was missing sooner. And I didn’t, and now he’s dead.”

“Would it have been our fault?” Eddie asks. “If you died in the bathroom that night? Because we didn’t notice what was wrong, and Bev let you go back to the room on your own, and I fell asleep with you right there?”

“No!” Stan looks appalled. “No, that was all me, you didn’t do anything!”

Bev smiles at him, a little shakily.

“Okay, point taken,” he says weakly. “Can we talk about me some other time? We need to do something about Henry.”

“Right,” Eddie sighs. “If we leave him here, he could die. And he might need medical attention.”

“How are we supposed to get him back  _ and  _ get out of here?” Stan asks. 

“We’re not,” Bev says softly, then her expression sets into something different. “Okay, listen to me. This is the story. Henry was threatening Stan, they’ll believe that because they’ve seen it, and he grabbed you whilst you were walking to the main building to-”

“Bev,” Eddie says, a little pained.

“We can make it work!” Bev says shakily. “Make it sound like we were the victims, because we always are anyway, and get out of here before he wakes up!”

“Can’t we just run for it and call the office from a payphone later?” Stan suggests.

“Do you know the number?” Bev points out. “And we don’t have any money.”

“It would be too long anyway,” Eddie says, then, after a deep breath, “I’m going back.”

“What?” Bev and Stan, nearly simultaneous.

“You two already have reputations. You keep running, I’ll go back and raise the alarm about Henry. Richie...Richie will come soon.”

“Eddie, that’s crazy!” Bev hisses.

“We’re not going without you!” Stan’s eyes are huge.

“No, you have to. You’ll be in so much trouble. Let me take the blame, you just run for your fucking lives. Head towards Maine, hitchhike or something, just get out of here!”

“Eddie-”

“You guys have been so great. I love you. I’ll see you soon, okay?” Eddie gives them both a nod and a shaky smile, and tears off back towards the camp.

*

Eddie is a fast runner. A very fast runner actually, and they always used to tell him at school to join the track team (not a chance in hell with the way the coach treated Ben) or at least to participate in gym (not under his mother’s watchful eye) and he never did, but now as he tears through the trees and feels the ache in his legs and how the wind whips through his clothes, he thinks he was born for this.

He doesn’t even need his inhaler. He wonders if he ever did.

He’s running for Henry even though he’s awful, for Stan and Bev who have hopefully taken the chance to escape this awful place, for his mother because  _ fuck her, _ for Ben and Bill and Mike and their kindness, for Richie and everything he is, because he is coming to get him and he just has to wait. He is running for himself because he is brave and fast and nothing else matters anymore.

When he stumbles onto the doorstep of the main building and bangs hard with his fist, he’s gasping for breath.

Robert comes to the door.

“Eddie,” he says, tone neutral. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

“Henry Bowers has had an accident,” he huffs out. “He tried to attack me in the woods when I snuck out to smoke. He had a knife, I pushed him away, and he got knocked out. He’s in the clearing ten minutes away if you go into the trees behind my cabin.”

_ Please god let Stan and Bev be gone. _

There’s a long silence.

“Come inside,” Robert says, and guides him to sit on the couch in the office. Lisa is in there too, and wears the same blank expression when Robert recounts the story and sends her off with a radio to find Henry.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie tries. “It was an accident, I was scared of him.”

“He has been violent in the past,” Robert acknowledges. “Especially if you were alone. Were you alone, Eddie?”

“Yes,” Eddie says firmly. “Stan’s asleep.” He doesn’t mention Bev.

“Okay. Eddie, I’m sure you know that your behaviour has been subpar lately.”

He nods, heart in his throat.

“Leaving the premises to smoke is absolutely unacceptable, and someone has been hurt. You have to face consequences for that.”

“He threatened me!” Eddie tries.

“And he’ll be punished for that too. You’re going to be in Isolation for the next week. You’ll still have individual counselling, but you can see your peers again when you’ve learned your lesson.”

“No,” Eddie says, horrified. “No, please don’t.” 

He’s heard the stories. He knows that he can’t withstand Isolation. There’s no way he can spend a week in there and still come out the same person.

“I’m sorry, Eddie,” Robert says, completely unbothered by the fear that must by radiating off Eddie. “It’s for your own good.”

“Please,” Eddie tries again. “I’ll be good, I swear. I’ll do washing up duty for two weeks, I’ll do anything, you don’t have to do this.”

“It’s already done,” Robert says, and takes him by the elbow, forcing him to walk back out into the dark.

They pass his cabin and Eddie prays silently that they won’t go in yet, that no one will notice Stan or Bev’s absence until the morning, when they’ll surely be far away.

They don’t. He’s marched further away to a cabin a little way away from all the others. He can’t see any windows.

Robert unlocks the door and pushes Eddie in. It’s a tiny room, with only one window, and it faces towards the woods so he won’t even be able to see the others. There’s one narrow bed with a thin blanket and a bedside table. One chair next to the bed. A rickety toilet and shower. Nothing else.

He slowly takes a seat on the bed, thinks of the people who have been here before. He knows Stan hasn’t been, but that he’s familiar with the procedures somehow, and that Bev was here for two nights once. Vic is the only person he’s heard spent a week in here, and he walked into the woods and hanged himself at the possibility of coming back.

Eddie doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him. His whole body feels wound tight around his heart, squeezing unpleasantly every time he breathes.

“Why do you smoke, Eddie?” Robert asks.

“My friends back home did,” he says weakly. “Richie, mostly.”

“I think,” Robert drawls, “That everything causing you pain traces back to Richie.”

Eddie closes his eyes, lets a few tears drip down his face.

“None of that,” Robert says. “You can fix it, Eddie. You just have to let go of the feelings you have for him.”

Richie will come. Richie will come to get him.

He is so tired.

Eddie opens his eyes.

Robert smiles coldly at him.

“It’ll be so much easier for you if you comply,” Robert says. “Are you ready to work with me?”

Eddie tilts his chin, hates Henry Bowers for chasing them, hates his mother for keeping him trapped, hates himself for letting Richie kiss him in his house, and finally speaks with a trembling voice.

“What do I have to do?”

* * *

Richie is by Mike’s pick-up truck fifteen minutes early, which isn’t a problem, because so is everyone else. 

He and Bill are the first to arrive, which doesn’t surprise him. Eddie spent so much time at the Denbrough household that he has clothes in Bill’s closet and a toothbrush in the bathroom, all there before he and Richie ever even crossed paths.

Bill gives him a pat on the back as they stand in the bright early morning sun.

Mike comes out of the house a few minutes later, drops some stuff into the back and smiles warmly at both of them. He looks anxious, but he seems well-rested and eager to go.

Ben is the last to arrive, though he’s still early, lugging a heavy looking bag with him, and slightly pink in the face.

“Jesus, Haystack, how many snacks have you got in there?”

“Thanks, Richie,” Ben says dryly. “It’s actually some warmer clothes in case we get caught in a weather emergency because I knew  _ you  _ wouldn’t think of that, a first aid kit, because I knew you wouldn’t think of that, and extra money because-”

“Point taken,” Richie mutters.

“You wouldn’t have asked  _ Bill  _ if it was snacks,” Ben points out, though he sounds more melancholy than annoyed.

“Sorry, Ben,” Richie says, feeling a little bad now.

“Don’t worry,” Ben waves a hand and looks away, like he’s embarrassed he brought it up. “Let’s go get Eddie.”

And just like that, they’re on the road. 

Mike is driving, and Ben is in the passenger seat reading the map. Richie and Bill sit in the back, taking a window seat each, although Richie is so sprawled out that he’s kicking Bill anyway.

It’s good to finally be on the move. He thinks if he sat around anymore, he would probably have exploded. Now they’re out here, actually doing  _ something  _ to help, and he feels less useless, like maybe he really does deserve Eddie’s trust in him after all.

He’s not entirely sure what the actual plan is once they get there, but he knows that none of them will leave without Eddie.

Everything else is planned out to perfection. They’ve all left a brief note explaining their disappearances (as if it’s not blatantly obvious what they’re doing) and an urge not to contact the cops. Richie has no idea how that’ll go down with any of them.

Ben and Mike have taken charge of packing, which is for the best because Richie and Bill have brought nothing between them except some of Eddie’s favourite snacks (from Richie, because Eddie probably hasn’t had any in a while) and a drawing of all of them holding hands (from Bill, at the insistence of Georgie) so they probably need the help.

“The truck looks g-good,” Bill says, after a long silence. “Cleaner.”

“I had to fix it up for long distance anyway,” Mike says, smiling a little proudly. “Thought it deserved a wash as well.”

“It does feel less like a deathtrap,” Richie quips. “I’m not fearing for my life yet.”

“I’m f-fearing for mine,” Bill says. “Try sitting n-next to R-Richie.”

“I’m so sorry,” Ben laughs. “We’ll switch around a lot. Mike can’t drive the whole way.”

“Ben is the only other person allowed to drive this truck,” Mike says. “Maybe Eddie can on the way back. If he’s...up to it.”

It’s the closest they’ve come to addressing how bad things might be.

“Do you think it’ll be bad?” Richie asks quietly.

The  _ Now Leaving Derry  _ sign whizzes past them outside.

“I think he’s going to need us,” Ben says softly. “It probably helps that he’s had friends there and that he knows we’re coming. But I guess those places really mess with your head.”

“It’s been three weeks already,” Mike sighs. “I don’t know how long it takes for these things to start doing damage.”

“We’ll get him therapy,” Richie says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. “Someone will be able to pay for that. Bill, your parents love Eddie, and they’re like, loaded, I mean  _ hello, _ the fucking boat for Georgie?!”

“They won’t p-pay for that,” Bill says quietly, suddenly looking almost a little angry. “No way.”

“Obviously they don’t have to,” Ben says diplomatically. “But maybe it’s worth asking so-”

“They w-won’t!” Bill insists, crossing his arms.

“But the boat-” Richie starts.

“They won’t even p-pay for m-my speech therapy!” Bill snaps. 

“What?” Mike frowns. Richie can see his eyebrows crease in the rearview mirror. “You don’t do speech therapy anymore?”

“Not for a f-f...not for a few months,” Bill says. “They found a b-better child therapist in town for G-Georgie, but they couldn’t pay for b-both of us.”

“Oh my god, Bill,” Richie breathes. “That’s so fucked up!”

“But Georgie had his own therapist! And you had your speech therapist! Why would they change anything?” Ben looks genuinely baffled. “That’s not fair at all!”

“This d-doctor is world-renowned,” Bill tells them, eyes suspiciously wet. “They’re w-worried about Georgie’s n-nightmares, so they stopped my treatment to pay for h-his.”

Richie reaches over and hugs him so tightly that his arms cramp.

“Ow,” Bill says into his shoulder. “R-Richie, my ribs.”

“I’m gonna fight your parents,” Richie says. “My parents are all of your parents now. And Eddie’s.”

“I’ll stick with my granddad, but send Maggie and Went my love,” Mike says. “Bill, that’s totally unfair. Have you talked to them about it?”

“I always thought Zack and Sharon were totally cool,” Richie grumbles, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realises that all the moments he thinks of as sweet or kind are how they are with Georgie. He’s not sure he’s seen them be anything other than distantly courteous with Bill.

“Not r-really,” Bill shrugs. “Georgie d-deserves this.”

“So do you!” Ben points out, turning around in his seat. “Bill, if you want therapy, you deserve it!”

“Honestly, fuck them,” Richie says, impassioned. “Fuck ‘em.”

“They’re not that b-bad,” Bill says. “They could b-be Sonia.”

“She’s the mega bitch,” Richie agrees, and Mike and Ben hum their agreement. “We’re not giving Eddie back to her, right?”

“Of course not,” Mike says. “She’s gonna go berserk when she finds out he’s left the camp though. Once she realises what’s happened, we are  _ in for it. _ ”

Ben winces.

“Whatever. He can stay with me until we’ve sorted it out.” Richie waves a hand like it’ll be that easy. In truth, he doesn’t know anything. Maybe Sonia really can march him straight back out of their house and ship him off there again. Maybe he’ll let her because he’ll still be under her spell in the strange, scary way he sometimes was. Maybe he won’t want to stay with Richie at all, because it’s his fault all this has happened in the first place.

He doesn’t allow himself to consider the possibility that they won’t bring Eddie home with them. He won’t leave California without him, that much he does know.

It’s a little lost on him at the time that Bill has successfully changed the topic from his own problems, and when he realises around the time that they speed out of Maine that the conversation never really went anywhere, Bill is napping in his seat and looking almost peaceful, so Richie puts it aside for later.

“Are we driving overnight?” Richie asks, craning his neck to look at Ben’s map without waking Bill. The distance looks astronomical, and they’ve barely made progress. “We could do it in like three days if we did that.”

“Absolutely not,” Mike tells him. “Me and Ben are the only drivers, and there’s no way we’ll sleep well enough in the truck to drive safely for three straight days. We’ll find a motel, we have enough money.”

“Can’t get in a car wreck,” Richie agrees. “Eddie Spaghetti would have our heads.”

“I was thinking more about the truck,” Mike teases. “She’s very precious to me.”

“You fucking your truck?”

“Oh my god, Richie,” Ben sighs. “Please never say that again.”

“You’re boring,” Richie says and plops back into his seat, jiggling his leg back and forth. “Can we stop for lunch soon?”

“We’re gonna blow all this money so fast,” Mike muses, but agrees anyway.

They wake Bill up and stop at a little diner in Massachusetts, approximately five hours into driving. It’s almost worryingly cheap, and the waitress gives them a look that Richie tries to interpret, wondering if it’s curiosity at four ragged-looking teenagers in a farm truck or racism. 

“This is actually kinda good,” Ben says, brandishing half a fry. “We should bring Eddie here on the way back, he’s probably been eating really bland food. I looked it up, they tend to give kids stuff with like, no flavour for some reason.”

“Like the cornflakes libido thing?” Mike asks.

“Oh, maybe,” Ben muses. “I mean, that’s the least of his worries.”

“I just wish we knew,” Richie says. “I hate the idea of seeing him again and having no idea how to help, because we don’t know what’s wrong. What are we supposed to say to him?”

“It d-doesn’t matter,” Bill says softly. “He isn’t expect- expecting us to be psychic. We just n-need to be there for him.”

“I can do that,” Richie says weakly. “I think."

“Of course we can,” Mike declares with a lot more authority. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“Right,” Richie mumbles.

The diner is nice, and he’s actually starting to enjoy spending some time with the others. Eddie is, of course, his best friend and his something more, but he’s starting to think he should spend more time with the others. Especially Mike and Ben, who he doesn’t spend much one-on-one time with, and who he’s realising are probably the coolest people in the world.

Of course, they have to move on pretty fast. Ben and Mike have been working on a schedule together that tells them they’re stopping at a motel in Cleveland for the first night. Richie’s grasp of American geography is shaky at best, but he understands that it’s significant progress. If they could drive without stopping to be with Eddie as soon as humanly possible, he’d endorse it, but he supposes a person has to be reasonable sometimes.

Ben drives the next section after the diner. He’s put on a mixtape that he swears down is not an Eddie Rescue Soundtrack (“I made it ages ago! Months!”) but the music is valiant enough that it feels like one. 

He ends up dozing until they reach their first stop. It’s dark outside when they wake up, and for the first time, he feels a little scared by what they’re doing. As they traipse up the path in the night in a completely unfamiliar environment, hours and hours away from everything they know, he realises that what they’re doing is absolutely insane. If they get into any kind of trouble, their parents are worlds away and probably pretty mad at them right now. It would be awful easy to get lost out here, he thinks, his chest feeling a little tight. He can't imagine how frightened Eddie is, alone all the way in California.

They have to use their fake IDs to check into motel rooms, because apparently you’re supposed to be at least 18. They only got them in the first place to see horror movies, and this was probably the last place any of them were expecting them to come in handy.

Richie ends up rooming with Bill because there’s no way all four of them are piling into one room without further scrutiny, and they awkwardly take turns changing in the bathroom before climbing into the beds. He’s not sure the sheets have been cleaned. Eddie’s going to have a  _ fit  _ on the way back.

“Are you okay?” Richie asks eventually. “I really had no idea...about your parents.”

“It’s f-fine,” Bill says. His stutter really has been worse the past few months. Richie’s heart aches for him. “I love G-Georgie more than anything. If this h-helps him, I don’t m-mind any of it.”

“You are far too good a person for Derry,” Richie says, shaking his head. “You and Ben and Mike. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone with a bigger heart.”

“Why n-not you and Eddie?” Bill frowns. “You’re k-kind, Richie. You’re doing all th-this because you love him.”

“We’re insane,” Richie huffs. “We do dumb things and we fight and we cause trouble. We probably deserve each other. But we’re not like  _ you. _ ”

“You b-better not be saying this because you’re g-gay,” Bill says pointedly. “You know w-we don’t think any l-less of you, right?”

“Yeah,” Richie says. He knows, but he can’t deny it’s nice to hear it. “It’s not like that. Or maybe it kinda is, I don’t know.”

“Richie.”

“Sorry,” he says, flopping back onto the bed. “I guess I’m still like, coming to terms with it. Sometimes I still think it’s weird or wrong, and then I remember it’s  _ me. _ Growing up in Derry fucks you up.”

“Yeah,” Bill says sadly. “It really d-does.”

“I always kinda knew,” he says. “God, Bill, don’t tell anyone but I kinda thought Henry Bowers’s cousin was cute.”

Bill’s cackle probably wakes half the floor up.

“Oh, shut up.” Richie throws a cushion at him. “It was nothing like the Eddie situation. I had to actively pretend that wasn’t happening.”

“Eddie I approve of,” Bill says. “You c-could have t-talked to me.”

“It was scary,” Richie shrugs. “I was just ignoring it until I had to go and kiss him. This whole stupid thing is making me deal with shit.”

“That’s one g-good thing, then,” Bill says mildly. “We all w-want you to be happy.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Richie says, then realises how intensely tired he feels, even after napping. “I think maybe we should get some sleep.”

“That sounds like a g-good idea,” Bill agrees, and sighs. “I haven’t s-said goodnight to Georgie.”

“Aw,” Richie says. “I’m sure he understands.”

“Yeah,” Bill says, but looks a little sad still. “Goodnight, Rich.”

“Night, Bill,” Richie tells him, then curls up in the bed and pulls the think blanket over him to sleep.

-

_ He dreams of Eddie that night.  _

_ In his dream, they draw up at a huge, ugly prison in Mike’s truck and his bruised eye is swollen shut. Bill is crying next to him. _

_ He runs to the heavy metal gate, rattles it.  _

_ “Eddie!” Richie cries. “Eddie!” _

_ “You’re looking for me?” _

_ And Richie turns around and Eddie is standing there with him outside the gate with blood streaking from his mouth down his chin and onto his shirt. _

_ “Eddie!” Richie sobs, and runs forward to hug him, but Eddie steps back, fury in his eyes. _

_ “Get away from me, homo!” _

_ Bill starts to cry harder behind him. Ben and Mike are watching with blank expressions, like they truly don’t care what happens next. _

_ “This is your fault,” Eddie babbles, blood dribbling from his mouth. “You got me sent here because you kissed me, and they tortured me. And I waited for you, but you never came!” _

_ “I’m sorry-” _

_ “They tortured me, Rich. Now I see how wrong it all is.” _

_ “We can go home-" _

_ “No.” Eddie smiles widely, a frightening broken thing. “I think I should stay here and be punished. Maybe you should stay too.” _

_ He tilts his head. “So you don’t really love me? Enough to stay?” _

_ He tries to answer, but realises his mouth has been all stitched shut. As he claws desperately, Eddie just stares. _

_ “Oh, Richie.” _

_ - _

“Richie!” That’s a different voice now, clear and real. “R-Richie, wake up!”

“Bill?” Richie blinks hard and suddenly he’s back in the motel room, blinking up at Bill in the weak early morning light. “What the fuck?”

“You were f-freaking out,” Bill says. “N-nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

“W-wanna talk about it?”

“Absolutely not.”

Bill just shrugs.

Richie turns the light on and checks the time. It’s just gone 6am, so they have a few hours before leaving again. The plan is for Mike and Ben to get the truck ready whilst Bill and Richie get everything together, then regroup at the front. It’s all perfectly plotted out, like a well-oiled machine, so he drifts off into a slightly more peaceful sleep.

The plan, as they really should have anticipated, goes tits up.

When they hear the rap at the door, Bill and Richie both hop to their feet, ready to go.

They open the door to Mike and Ben, both looking absolutely stricken.

“Oh shit,” Richie says quietly, the dread from his nightmare settling back into his chest. “What’s wrong?”

“Um,” Mike says, voice thick. “The truck won’t start.”

“Fuck,” Bill says, running a hand through his hair.

“What?” Richie cries. “I thought you  _ just  _ fixed it up!”

“I did!” Mike says. “I don’t understand what’s happened! I’m sorry, I thought-”

Richie turns away from the door and sits down on the bed because his legs are shaking. Mike looks on the verge of tears.

“There’s something else,” Ben says quietly, like he really doesn’t want to have to bring this up. “We’re...on the TV in the reception.”

“What?!” Richie and Bill say simultaneously.

“We’ve been reported missing,” Ben says glumly. “I think it was probably my mom who called the cops. Sorry, guys.”

“Don’t be,” Mike says quickly. “We have to get out of here before they figure out who we are, and the truck’s broken down. I don’t know what to do.”

“Shit,” Richie says. “I don’t suppose anyone knows some crazy vigilante mechanic?”

Everyone shakes their head.

“Okay then,” Richie tries to swallow back the panic. “We’re fucked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm curious, did you guys guess what stan's secret was? what did you think it was? enquiring minds want to know. thank you for reading as always, come chat to me on tumblr @grumpystan!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A guardian angel emerges, paths cross, and everything moves towards its end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow this one took a while! sorry for the lateness- on top of the holiday season, i've been dealing with a death close to my family, somehow injured both of my hands in different ways, and struggled a little with the subject matter ahead. i hope the chapter is good regardless
> 
> trigger warnings include: depictions of conversion therapy including allusions to drugging, physical violence, and electricity, none of which take place 'onscreen' (if you like) but are vaguely referenced throughout, along with an exceedingly vague reference to porn. there is an allusion to what could possibly be interpreted as a sexual assault, but it's left very ambiguous and vague

The truck makes a dull clanging noise as Richie kicks the side of it.

“Please don’t do that,” Mike huffs from where he’s kneeling in the dusty ground in front of the truck. “That’s not helping.”

“Well, it’s the only idea I have,” Richie grumbles. “And my dad always says that sometimes stuff will fix itself if you give it a good kick.”

“That is the  _ last  _ thing I want to hear a dentist say,” Ben says. “Have we got any further?”

“I d-don’t know anything about tr-trucks,” Bill replies. “Does it have a flat t-tyre?”

“No, we checked,” Mike says patiently. “I don’t think we can fix this on our own.”

“So who’s supposed to help?” Richie snaps. “We came all the way out here without any of our parents! We are  _ totally on our own  _ out here, Mike!”

“I know that!” Mike almost shouts, voice cracking a little. “I obviously know that!”

Richie has never seen him lose composure like this before. Mike is cool and composed and fearless,

Mike misses Eddie as much as any of them. He keeps forgetting that.

“We’ll figure it out,” Richie says fiercely, because it is his turn to be brave. “We will. It’ll be fine, Mike, it’s not your fault.”

Mike swallows hard and nods.

“Ben,” Richie snaps his fingers at Ben like he’s a particularly bossy teacher they had when they were just turning eleven. “We’re gonna get talking to people. Charming sob story, it’s our bread and butter.”

“I’m not sure you should be doing that,” Ben frowns, like he feels bad for saying it. “You might do a voice.”

“I will not do a voice.”

“You would. I’m taking Bill.” Ben pats Bill on the back to get him back on his feet, and offers Richie a sympathetic smile.

“I want to help!” Richie says weakly.

“You are helping. Rich, you got this whole thing on the road. But I think you should stay here.”

“But-”

Ben bounces forward, gives Richie a quick, reassuring hug.

In his ear, he whispers: “Don’t let Mike blame himself,” and Richie understands.

Mike is going to dwell on this, and he needs Richie, the person taking the whole tragedy the hardest, to be the one to offer forgiveness as many times as he needs it. There is nothing to be sorry for, and he hates that Mike feels sorry at all, but this adventure is taking its toll.

When Ben and Bill disappear back into the motel building, Richie sits down next to Mike in the dirt.

“Hi, Mike,” he says weakly.

“Hello, Richie,” Mike replies, looking a little amused.

“Sorry I kinda got caught up in the Eddie thing.”

“We’re all caught up,” Mike raises his palms. “And I understand. You and him are...crazy close.”

“That’s one word for it,” Richie hums. “What do you know about Cali?”

“It’s hot,” Mike says, cracking a smile.”Especially in summer. Eddie probably has heat stroke problems, but if anyone knows how to deal with that, it’s him. I imagine he’s badgering his new friends about it.”

“You better drink plenty of water. Eds won’t get in the truck with a dehydrated driver in heat like that.”

“Oh dear,” Mike snorts. “No, he really won’t, will he?”

“Not our Eddie,” Richie says. “If he’s still our Eddie."

“Of course he is,” Mike lays a hand on his shoulder. “We just need to get to him soon. He’ll be okay.”

“Yeah,” Richie says. “And we will. It’s really not your fault, you know.”

“We don’t know that,” Mike points out. “It could be.”

There is a long silence where they sit in the dust and the only sound is Richie scuffing his sneakers back and forth.

“I’ll forgive you if it is,” Richie says eventually. 

“A few years ago, you’d have shouted the motel down.”

“I’ve grown up!” Richie raises his palms. “And I know you, and you would never deliberately let anything happen to Eddie. It’s not like we’re fighting some supernatural evil. It’s just people!”

“That might be worse,” Mike says gently. “Thank you, Rich.”

“Anytime,” he replies, pointing his index fingers at Mike and clicking his tongue. “Let me ride shotgun for the next bit in return.”

“Sure thing. Ben’s driving, and Bill doesn’t like it anyway, he gets motionsick.”

“If Bill pukes in the truck, we’re leaving him on the roadside,” Richie says earnestly. “Eddie can have shotgun all the way back if he wants, though.”

“He’ll hold you to that. And-” Mike breaks off, frowns.

“What?”

“I was just thinking about Eddie’s friends,” Mike sighs. “It feels wrong to leave them there. He clearly likes them a lot, and they might be a support system. Besides, it feels wrong to just leave them there.”

“Yeah,” Richie sighs. “But we can’t just kidnap three kids. Where are they supposed to stay? Aren’t people going to look for them?”

“When did you become the sensible one?” Mike teases. “I know. I just feel bad.”

“Because you’re stupid nice,” Richie grumbles, feeling a little bad that he hasn’t given much thought to Stan and Bev beyond whether the former might steal Eddie from him, which seems increasingly unlikely now he actually contemplates it. “We’ll see.”

“Hey,” Mike says, cutting him off. “They’re back!”

Ben and Bill are approaching, and with them, a man wearing a plaid shirt and dangling keys from his finger. Ben looks absolutely thrilled with himself, Bill is smiling in the soft, proud way he sometimes does. Not often, but sometimes.

“Hello everyone,” Ben announces, clapping his hands together. “Do you remember Don Hagarty?” He does some jazz hands for effect.

“Uh…” Richie says.

“Was this before me?” Mike asks.

Don laughs. Ben looks a little crushed.

“Eddie’s old n-neighbour,” Bill pipes up. “He lived next d-door to Eddie for years. He m-moved when…”

“When my partner died,” Don says, with a sad smile. “Adrian always had a soft spot for Eddie. He used to worry about him all alone with his mom. Especially when she caught him talking to us.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Richie says quietly, imagining losing Eddie. “He sounds lovely.”

“He was,” Don says gently. “Very lovely. And  _ that  _ is why I’m possibly about to do something very stupid.”

He tosses the keys he’s carrying gently at Mike, who catches them with a stunned expression. 

“Adrian would not allow a teenage boy that similar to him to suffer in a place like that,” Don tells them. “Not for a single second. And I am doing this in his memory, so you better not scratch my truck.”

“I- you can’t be serious!” Mike says.

“It’s a little ridiculous,” Don admits. “My truck is the blue one. You can move all your stuff into there. I’m staying here a little while longer on business, I’ll get yours fixed up for you and you can come find me on your way back.”

“We can’t thank you enough,” Richie whispers. “You’re sure?”

“Go,” Don laughs. “Before I panic and change my mind.”

Richie jumps to his feet and hugs him. He seems a little surprised for a moment, but hugs him back.

“You may not remember me,” he says to Richie, “But I remember you. Because you are  _ so  _ like me.”

Richie frowns a little.

“Go save your boy,” Don says, patting him on the back. “I’ll see you all soon, and I expect to see him too!”

“Thank you so so much,” Mike exclaims again as he heaves their bags out of the farm truck. “You’re just the coolest person ever.”

“And don’t you forget it,” Don says. “Bill has the motel number, if you need to call, just ask for me.”

“You’re my hero,” Ben says, and Richie suspects he may have declared it multiple times in the time he’s been gone.

They climb into the new truck, which is a little scrappy but it doesn’t smell like four teenage boys and it’s not making any terrifying noises, so Richie is living like a king.

“I cannot believe our luck,” Ben declares as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “And I am terrified of damaging this thing.”

“B-Ben nearly screamed when we saw him,” Bill laughs. “What were the ch-chances?”

“I hope my truck will be okay,” Mike muses. “Or my head’s on the chopping block. But now they can’t trace us by the truck!”

“We are gods among men,” Richie declares. Okay, maybe he’s a little buzzed.

And so they drive. They’ve wasted the better part of the day, but the truck is faster and smoother and Ben is just a tiny bit more willing to push the speed limit (with a little goading from Richie) than Mike is.

Mike naps in the back, because the truck seats seven, and Richie watches a little guiltily, thinking that Mike probably worked himself up over the delay more than he had realised.

When he wakes up, Ben pulls over on the side of the road and they eat sandwiches and packets of chips leaning over the seats and giggling out practices of apologies to Don for the crumbs. Once it’s dark, they switch drivers again and after a great deal of warnings and promises made, Richie is allowed behind the wheel.

He likes driving. He likes watching the landscape roll out in front of him, rolling into it knowing exactly what is coming, and bringing his friends with him safe inside a metal beast. He stays within all the limits because Bill is breathing down his neck and threatening to call the motel at their next stop and rat him out to Don.

By morning, Mike is driving again (Bill has never been allowed to learn and as a result is alternating between sleeping and going slightly stir-crazy) and Richie is watching the sun rise. 

“Next motel soon,” Mike says, and Bill huffs a sigh of relief. “We’ve just passed halfway to Cali!”

“Check us out!” Ben crows.

“My p-parents must be going  _ cr-crazy _ ,” Bill sighs. “I hope G-Georgie’s okay.”

“He’s probably just playing with all your stuff,” Richie tells him, patting his shoulder. “Taking advantage.”

“He d-does that anyway,” Bill smiles. “I d-don’t mind.”

“If I had a brother we would fight all the time,” Richie muses. 

“I think you ate your twin in the womb,” Mike says earnestly. “I think there’s at least two of you in there.”

“Oh, please don’t,” Ben shudders. “I will have nightmares about that.”

Richie decides not to find out first-hand if Ben has nightmares about that, and decides to share with Mike when they collect their keys that night. He’s not wearing his glasses in case they’re too recognisable, and Bill is dead silent to keep his stutter under wraps.

Richie walks into a wall almost immediately after leaving the reception and Mike laughs so hard that the bored woman behind the desk calls to ask if they’re okay. He’s still laughing when they put their rucksacks down in their room and fall into beds.

“How haven’t they caught us yet?” Richie mumbles into the pillow. “They even know where we’re going.”

“Maybe it’s fate,” Mike says cheerfully, kicking off his shoes. “Eddie managing to call, Georgie’s little boat, running into Don. Someone up there likes us.”

“Can the higher powers hurry this up? I miss him.”

“Me too,” Mike says. “But not like you do, I imagine.”

“I just want to see him,” Richie sighs. “I want to tell him so much stuff.”

“About the road trip?”

“Well, obviously,” he says. “But kind of just stupid stuff too. I wanna tell him about my dad thinking I was breaking in, and the new cereal my mom bought, and how me and Ben actually got jobs, ‘cause I tell him everything! Literally so much boring stuff, but I want him to know!”

Mike just smiles sadly at him.

“What if he hates me now?” Richie blurts out. “What if it worked, and he hates me?”

“Then…” Mike chews his lip. “I don’t know. But we’ll look after him. How bad can it be?”

Richie, lying down in the uncomfortable bed, thinks to himself that it might be worse than they can possibly have prepared for.

-

They’re out bright and early the next morning, the truck starting smoothly as they all hold their breath, and then they’re back on the road.

Ben puts his mixtape back on for the drive, and Richie belts along to Africa by Toto so loudly that Bill threatens to kick him out multiple times before the song ends whilst Mike shouts “ _ I will turn this truck around!” _ and Ben scrambles to try and stop the music.

They stop at a diner for lunch, claiming they deserve the treat because they’re making such good ground. Richie and Bill are eating waffles, and Mike and Ben eating eggs, when they notice two people staring at them.

“Maybe they’re not looking at us,” Ben says, voice low. 

“They’re definitely looking at us,” Mike hisses back. “Shit, do you think they’ve seen the news?”

The girl, who has dirty ginger hair in a ponytail and a scowl that could freeze hell, narrows her eyes at them. Clearly, she’s noticed them staring. 

The boy opposite to her has his back to them, but when he occasionally turns to look at them, Richie can see a sharp, skinny face and dark shadows under his eyes.

They both look terrified.

“They d-don’t look like they’re g-going to turn us in,” Bill offers quietly. 

As he speaks, the girl gets to her feet and stomps over, the boy hurrying after her. Under his shirt, Richie notices, one of his arms is bandaged. They’re not abandoning meals, just two glasses of water.

“You,” she says, pointing at him with a chewed down nail. “Are Richie Tozier.”

“No, I just look like him,” Richie says on instinct. “I don’t know that guy. I’m twenty five.”

To his immense surprise, she laughs. The boy smiles, which makes his face look totally different. Sadness had seemed to be as much a part of it as his nose.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, rolling her eyes. “We saw your face on the news and we said ‘ _ that’s Richie Tozier?!’  _ but now you’ve opened your mouth, it totally makes sense.”

Richie blinks at her, trying to figure out what in the goddamn hell is going on.

Luckily for them, they get their answers when the boy speaks.

“Really, Bev?” 

“Bev?” Richie asks, at the same time as Bill’s mouth drops open. “As in Beverly?”

“Oh my god,” Ben whispers.

“Uh,” she says. “Yeah. Eddie mentioned us?”

“You’d be Stanley?” Mike asks, and the boy smiles a little and nods.

“So where’s Eddie?!” Richie looks around a little wildly, as if Eddie might walk out of the bathroom at any moment, and he has the bizarre feeling that he’s not ready. “Why isn’t he with you?”

“Oh god,” Bev says softly, closing her eyes, and Richie’s heart drops. “I’m so sorry.”

“Is he o-okay?” Bill asks, face white. 

“What’s happened?!” Richie says frantically.

“He’s okay,” Stanley says quickly. “He...couldn’t get out with us. My fault. We were on our way to Maine for you, so we could help him. But holy shit, you really were coming to get him!”

“How could you leave him?!” Richie bursts out. “He’s your friend!”

To his horror, Stanley dissolves into tears. He raises a hand to his face, and Richie has a terrible feeling about the bandage on his wrist.

“Oh,” Ben says, looking stricken.

“Stan, it’s fine,” Beverly says quickly, frowning at Richie. “It’s not your fault. And we’re fixing it.”

“Sorry,” Richie says quietly.

“Okay, Richie,” Beverly snaps. “If we’re doing this, you are  _ not  _ allowed to say anything like that to him ever again.”

“I can look after myself,” Stanley says quietly.

“I know you can, you just won’t,” she says sharply, and drops into the booth next to Ben, who looks like he’s been struck by lightning. She takes one of his fries whilst he blinks at her, cheeks a little pink. “Sorry, man. I haven’t eaten in a while.”

“That’s...fine,” Ben manages. Richie hides his smile behind his hand.

Stanley sits down next to Mike, folding himself up to take up as little space as he can. A few tears escape every now and again, and Mike takes a clean straw from the table and puts it in his milkshake to offer it to him.

“How is Eddie?” Richie asks, terrified for the answer.

“He’s okay,” Bev shrugs. “He’s a tough kid. He’s been in Isolation for a few days, which isn’t fun, but he’ll be alright. He saved our asses. Fuckin’ Bowers.”

“Bowers?” Ben asks.

“Hey, you’re Ben!” Bev grins. “You’d know all about Bowers.”

“Yeah,” Ben squeaks, looking embarrassed again.

Bev doesn’t seem to notice, just sighs.

“We should probably get moving,” Stanley says softly. “It’s a hard place to be alone.”

“Are you okay? Both of you, I mean,” Mike asks suddenly. “I know we’ve just talked about Eddie, but-”

“We will be,” Bev says, with a brave smile. “Let’s get Eddie and go from there.”

Richie has the feeling that what Bev says goes, so they quickly hand their waitress the money (and a very generous tip) and slip back out to the truck.

Stan and Bev take seats in the back and seem to have a whole silent conversation between them, Mike starts up the truck, and they speed off down the road on the last leg to save Eddie, alone and waiting.

* * *

_ You have done something bad. _

_ When you do bad things, you must repent. _

_ Do you understand? _

“I understand,” Eddie says out loud, even though he’s not sure if he’s talking to anyone. The whole world is heavy and thick as syrup, and he is trying to make his eyes focus on something. “What do I need to do?”

“You need to destroy that part of yourself,” the voice says, and Eddie snaps back into reality to look at Robert sitting in the chair opposite his bed. He has been in here for three days, he thinks, and he is starting to think he is never getting out. “That part of you, the infected part, has to die so the rest of you can move forward.”

“I always felt like I was sick,” Eddie says faintly. He has been sick for so long, his mother says, and he needs to be looked after. “I didn’t know how to make it better.”

The room blurs, then sharpens again. Robert’s image stretches and tightens. 

“The first step is acceptance,” Robert tells him, nodding solemnly like he truly feels sympathetic for Eddie. Maybe he does. “Do you accept that you have these sinful feelings?”

“Yes,” Eddie murmurs. 

“Let’s talk about Richie.”

“No,” Eddie says, and tries to focus on a patch of light on the floor. When did morning come? Has it been two days or three? “No, I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” Robert replies, which is nice of him. It’s nice of him to help. “Let’s start with Stanley.”

“Stanley?” It’s more than just a reply. There’s something about Stanley he’s supposed to remember. Stanley is not here. Stanley ran away with Bev. Stanley did something bad and he cried. Stanley is gone.

His thoughts are strange and not quite connected, as if each one has been dislocated like a joint. The right questions, but with gaps where gaps shouldn’t be so there is no logical way to follow them.

His mind has crumpled in on itself, a final collapse under the unbearable weight of being Eddie.

“Have you ever felt any unbecoming feelings towards him?”

“No!” Eddie splutters, a little stunned. The thought quite honestly has never even crossed his mind. “No, never.”

“Has he ever behaved inappropriately towards you?”

“Not at all,” he says. “We’re just friends.”

“So the only problem you’ve had is with Richie?”

“I suppose,” Eddie says, too tired to correct him on the use of ‘problem’. “I’m tired.”

“You can sleep soon,” Robert tells him. “Let’s talk a little more.”

Eddie nods.

“Think of it as a poison. You’ve been exposed to it for years through your friends. This is just a detox.”

The word  _ poison _ worms its way somewhere into the centre of his head, unfurls. There is something he is supposed to realise.

“Was there something in my water?” Eddie whispers. 

“Nothing to worry yourself about,” Robert says gently. “It’s just helping us along.”

“Okay,” Eddie says. His head feels heavy. “Can I rest now?”

“For a little while,” Robert says, and Eddie curls up on the bed and feels the cold, stiff sheet underneath his cheek.

Robert leaves at some point. He’s not sure how much time has passed. Everything feels slow and sticky. His mouth is very dry.

There is a long period where he just lies on his back and stares at the ceiling and wonders if he’s got it all wrong. He has no reason to be crying, Robert has said kind things and not blamed him for a second of it.

The facts are, he thinks dazedly, that Richie kissed him and he was sent away, and that he has been treated with far more kindness here than he is at home. Maybe Bev is traumatised and Stan is broken, and they wouldn’t trust anyone who offered them help. Maybe Eddie himself is just far too fragile to be so far from everything he knows.

Maybe he doesn’t know anything at all.

When he looks back on it now, he sees a clear thread that runs through his whole life. Right from the moment his father died and his mother’s mind snapped, he’s been following the thread, picking up the string as he rebels against her, runs with the Losers Club, swims in the dirty water, kisses Richie on his bedroom floor. The destination has been right in front of him this whole time, and he’s run into it with his eyes wide open.

The only thing he can do now is sleep.

-

Eddie doesn’t sleep well. He drifts in and out of it, each time forgetting where he is, why he is alone, getting less and less sure which was the dream and which was reality.

There is no sign of Stan and Bev. He hopes they’re safe. In his imagination, they’re in a bright diner somewhere drinking milkshakes and planning their next steps on the back of a napkin. Some kind waitress has given them free food, and they are singing along to the radio under their breaths.

They are a world away and he is alone. The only way out is forward. He has to do what they want him to do.

Richie will come and the answer will be clear.

It terrifies him nevertheless. He doesn’t know what to do with Richie. He thinks he probably shouldn’t kiss him again. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

Eddie doesn’t want to break his heart, but he thinks he is already broken right the way through. 

When he remembers where it all started, it feels like the moment he doomed himself.

_ Outside of his head, it had been a totally normal day. _

_ They had been at Richie’s house listening to a New Kids album (information that was never to reach Ben) and eating cookies that Went had baked right off the baking tray, even though they were burning the roofs of their mouths. _

_ “I think,” Richie had declared, taking a break from belting out lyrics through a full mouth, “That we would make a great band.” _

_ “Just us?” Eddie had asked, kicking his sneakers against the counter he was sitting on. _

_ “Well, we could. We’re obviously the most talented of the gang, Eddie Spaghetti. But we could let the others tag along!” _

_ “Who’s gonna handle the riches we bring in?” _

_ “I guess we’ll need to drag in some poor accountant type,” Richie had shrugged. “And someone super cool and tough to protect us from crazy stalkers.” _

_ “You do seem like the type to attract crazy stalkers,” Eddie had hummed. _

_ “Your mom will definitely be in that crowd.” _

_ “Shut up!” Eddie had laughed because he didn’t mean it, didn’t ever want Richie to shut up, and thrown a handful of flour at him. Went never put anything away. Maggie had stuck a post-it saying IDIOT!! on his back earlier. _

_ “Fine, fine,” Richie had said. “But I mean it!” _

_ Richie had jumped off the table and started belting out the lyrics again. Eddie can’t even remember what the song was now, and wishes he knew enough lyrics to find out, but he remembers the gleam in Richie’s eyes as he had sung them straight to him, and the feeling like he had swallowed a rock in his throat. _

Back in the real world, Eddie feels like his whole rib cage is filled with rock. He’s been sleeping for a few hours maybe, which is the best he’s gotten since he was sent here. Maybe it’s a strategy, he thinks. Exhaust him to the point of insanity and they’ll be able to tell him anything, and he’ll listen to it like it’s god’s voice, the way he always listened to his mother.

His mother. Robert and Lisa. Cut one monster’s head and two more will take its place. 

Richie is not who he wants right now. Richie is complicated and confusing and thinking of him is hurting Eddie’s stomach. He wants Bill with his soft voice that would never yell, and his gentle hands that would never strike him. Bill who has always been there in the least complicated way, who would never hurt Eddie or kiss him. He feels like a bad best friend for not thinking of him that much in the past few weeks, but his trust in Bill is so implicit and obvious that worrying about him has never even crossed his mind. Bill will be there for him at the end of it all. So will Ben and Mike. And Richie, of course, but Eddie is terrified that he won’t be able to let him help.

This is if he ever gets out at all. Maybe it’s safer just to stay here through it all. Stanley has a point when he says that it is safe here. They are fed well and have warm rooms to sleep in. Some people don’t get that much.

But Stanley hurt himself and now he is gone.

If Stanley is gone, who is writing on the window?

Eddie turns his head slowly back towards the single window in the room, remembering in a fuzzy rush that he had seen something there, something important, and forgotten it.

Something is definitely wrong with his head.

Scrawled in the condensation of the window, a little shakily, presumably because the writer was trying to write backwards, is one word.

_ WAIT _

There is a small, blurry shape next to it, but the condensation is running and Eddie’s addled mind can’t quite decode it.

As he stares at it, tries to figure out who is reaching out to him, the door opens again and Lisa walks in.

“Hi,” he says, scrambling dazedly to keep her attention on him so she doesn’t see the window. “Is, uh, is Henry okay?”

“Henry is well,” she says coolly. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay,” he replies vaguely. “Why...why are you here?” His words slur together a little, which he supposes is a bad sign.

“I want to talk to you about your plan,” Lisa says. “And I want you to tell me where Stanley and Beverly are.”

“I don’t know.”

“Were you leaving with them?”

“No.”

“Why did you come back, Eddie? Was it for Henry?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, his heart in his throat. So Stan and Bev really are gone. He hopes they’re safe.

“Did you come back because you know this is what’s best for you?”

Eddie’s eyes drift to the window where the word is running to the point of illegibility, and sees a flash of red disappear beyond the frame.

He tries to set his face into a neutral expression.

“Did you come back to save yourself?”

Maybe he did. He is so scared of what lies beyond the woods of this place. No wonder people stay.

He nods. 

Lisa smiles sweetly, reaches forward and pushes his hair out of his face. Her touch makes him shiver. There is a distant memory itching at the back of his mind of Robert doing the same thing with a warm, sweaty palm, and it being too dark to see anything except his eyes and his teeth. He remembers the smell of his breath.

Eddie stares at her in silence. As she opens her mouth to speak again, there’s another flash of movement by the window.

All of a sudden, Bev is there.

She is pale and drawn-out and her hair looks like it hasn’t been washed in a long time, but she is there.

Their eyes meet, and he stares at her in astonishment as she presses a finger to her lips to shush him, and presses the other to the writing in the window.

Bev watches him with sad, sorry eyes as she slowly scrawls something else into the window, careful not to make a sound. It’s backwards, but it’s very clearly the letter R. 

She cannot possibly mean what he thinks she means.

She presses a hand against the glass for a moment, then slips back out of view.

“What are you thinking about?” Lisa asks him.

“I think I’m fucked up,” Eddie murmurs, which isn’t untrue.

“Language,” she replies, but she’s smiling. “We know you’ve had a problem with medication in the past. You’ve been on some sedatives for the last few days to help with the stress. We’ll wean you off them again soon and you’ll feel brand new and squeaky clean!”

“Thanks,” he says, pulling at a thread. Richie would spit in her face. She would probably drag him across the room by his hair. He has a dim feeling she has done that. There is a sore patch on his head.

“We’re going to work together to help you, Eddie. But first you need to help us. Where did Stanley and Beverly go?”

“I don’t know,” he says. To be fair, he doesn’t know where they went, where they have been for days. And he really doesn’t know where Stan is, though he hopes he’s with Bev. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, Eddie. You made the right choice in coming back.”

“I know.” 

Before she can speak again, there is a crackle on her radio and the sound of Robert’s voice on the other end.

“Code Blue,” he says, then after a few moments where all Eddie can hear is interference and the sound of coughing, “Over.”

“I have to go and deal with that,” Lisa sighs. “Not all our wards are as well-behaved as you, Eddie.”

She kisses his forehead, which feels vile, and leaves. The door locks behind her and the room is plunged into darkness.

The silence seems to stretch on forever in front of him before the door rattles again.

Eddie sits frozen, suddenly terrified that it’s Robert or Lisa coming back, that they’ve caught Bev and hurt her. Would they hurt her? They have been so kind.

The lock turns, and then there is nothing between him and Bev.

“Holy shit,” he croaks.

“Oh,  _ Eddie, _ ” she whispers, and practically flies across the room to him, her hands hovering anxiously as if she doesn’t know whether to hug him or not. “Eddie, I am so sorry, we weren’t going to leave, we were coming back but we got cut off by Robert so we had to run or the whole story-”

“It’s okay,” he tells her, and half collapses into her arms. He feels so small and shaky next to her, like all the life has been sapped out of him. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Bev sniffs, rubbing his back. “It’s really not, but it’s going to be. We have to go now, we gotta move.”

“We’re running?” Eddie’s mind struggles to catch up. “Where’s Stan? Is he okay?!”

“The code blue is him, he’s fine, we’ll see him in a minute,” Bev says, speaking in a low and urgent tone. “Eddie, Richie’s here.”

He stares at her, feeling his heart start to beat faster and faster. Where she is holding onto his wrist, there are two tiny painful grooves in the skin. His mind makes a hazy link to a sharp, pinching feeling (an electric shock, he thinks) and strange noises, but beyond that, his memory is blank.

“Your friends are all in the parking lot,” she says gently. “We met them on the road.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie breathes. “Richie?”

“Misses you like hell,” Bev smiles weakly. “He’s worried sick. So hurry up and let’s get you back to him.”

She holds out her hand, and even though she has dirty fingernails that are probably carrying any number of horrible germs, Eddie takes it, and they tear off into the trees, following the melting pool of the setting sun on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! more details on stuff that seems glossed over here will be filled in over the next few chapters. catch me on tumblr @grumpystan <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops it's been a while. in my defence, i got real busy. and anyone who's read my multichaps before knows i get sporadic sometimes. but we're nearing the end now! maybe.
> 
> the warnings for this chapter: ....no warnings!

In the back of the truck, Mike uses the first aid kit to gently wrap a cleaner bandage around Stan’s arm, and Bev sits in silence beside them and eats goldfish crackers.

“How did you get so far on your own?” Ben asks, not taking his eyes off the road.

“It’s a long way to walk,” Richie agrees. “We had a hard time just in the truck.”

Bill looks up like he wants to say something, but doesn’t. He hasn’t said a word since introducing himself to Eddie’s friends. Richie thinks they must know he has a stutter, Eddie must have mentioned it sometime in all those weeks, but he doesn’t blame Bill for a second. Especially now, knowing what he knows.

“We didn’t walk the whole way,” Bev says. “God, Stan would have fucking passed out before we crossed state lines. We’ve been hitching rides with anyone who had, like, democrat stickers on their truck.”

“The last guy dropped us off at the diner,” Stan chips in. “We’ve just been hanging out there, I can’t believe you all walked in.”

“We’re finally coming into some luck,” Mike says, and smiles warmly at Stan as he tugs his sleeve back down. 

“Not Eddie,” Richie reminds him, and everyone’s shoulders slump. “He’s still trapped and he’s on his own.”

Five pairs of eyes stare mournfully back at him.

“So don’t like, celebrate,” he says awkwardly, and drops back down into his seat. He misses Eddie terribly. With Bev and Stan here, his absence is just more achingly obvious.

It is also not helpful, though far from relevant, that Stanley is kind of stunning. He’s not attracted to him by any means, can’t imagine wanting anyone but Eddie, but Stanley has a striking face with sharp cheekbones, a handsome nose (Richie didn’t know noses could  _ be  _ handsome), and piercing eyes. His hair is kind of lank right now, but he supposes it’s rather nice when it’s washed. 

He hasn’t really asked Stan about his friendship with Eddie. He’s a little afraid he’d be throwing his hat into the ring of a contest he’s not equipped for, but in his defence, he and Eddie have the history and the chemistry, so he feels like he deserves his shot.

Eventually, Ben breaks the silence.

“How bad is it in there?” he asks, sounding like he regrets saying it out loud halfway through. “Do you think Eddie is okay?”

“It’s bad,” Stan says softly, like he wishes he could lie. “Don’t believe him if he says it wasn’t. I guess, uh, sometimes it feels like it’s okay. The staff seem really nice, and the rooms aren’t too bad. Especially when you have a good roommate.”

His mind seems to drift elsewhere for a moment, and he stares out of the window as Richie watches him and waits for some answer that will make Eddie knowable again.

“It’s kind of insidious,” Bev says, taking over. “I think you’re probably imagining some horror film, but most days they just did shitty amateur therapy and preached at us. Don’t get me wrong, it fucks you up, but they can’t do anything that would attract attention.”

“They do the bad stuff later,” Stan says quietly. “Away from prying eyes, once they’re in your head enough.”

“Are they in Eddie’s head?” Richie prods.

“I think his mom already was,” Stan shrugs. “He was so...out of it when he arrived.”

“His mom is a monster,” Richie says, impassioned. “I hope you never have to meet her.”

“So we can come back to Maine? With you?” Bev asks. She sounds like she’s trying to be carefree, but her voice betrays her.

“Of c-course,” Bill finally speaks up, though Richie sees him flinch at his stutter. “You h-have to.”

Ben’s eyes flicker over to them in the rearview mirror before he makes a noise of agreement.

“We don’t want to be a bother,” Stan says, and Bev elbows him gently.

“You won’t be, it’s fine,” Mike tells him. “Georgie will be excited to meet you!”

“That’s Bill’s brother, right?” Stan looks over at Bill, raises an eyebrow for confirmation.

“Yeah,” Bill’s face brightens a little. “He loves all my f-friends. He’s the reason we could c-come here, we sold his antique p-present.”

“Damn, Eddie was comprehensive,” Richie comments. “You guys talked a lot, huh?”

“He just talks really fast,” Bev quips, and everyone in the truck laughs because it’s true and they haven’t thought about it much lately. Eddie is still real, Richie reminds himself, and they’re going to get him back.

“Hey,” Ben says from the driver’s seat and Richie twists his body to drop back into his own seat and listen. Ben adopts a pilot voice, speaking into a fake microphone, “Passengers, if you look out of our left window, you’ll see that we are now entering California.”

Richie presses his face against the cold window and squints through the early evening darkness at the  _ Welcome to California!  _ sign on the side of the road. They are so close.

“Will we get there tonight?” He’s nervous suddenly, like he should have prepared something to say to Eddie when he sees him, should have thought of the best way to make sure he’s okay without coddling him.

“Yeah,” Ben says, sounding nearly as anxious as Richie feels. “Late, though.”

“Late is better,” Bev says. “We left in the middle of the night, went through the woods.”

“Jesus,” Richie huffs. “Eddie hates the dark. And the woods.”

“He was really brave anyway,” Stan shifts in his seat. “He ran all the way back to camp so he could save us. And Bowers.”

“I still can’t believe he’s stuck there for helping  _ Bowers, _ ” Richie says.

“I can,” Mike comments. “That’s our Eddie.”

Richie doesn’t reply because there’s a lump in his throat all of a sudden and Bill is starting to look a little sick, so he lets his friend rest his head on his shoulder and watches California get dark.

“What’s the p-plan?” Bill asks eventually.

“I’ve been thinking,” Bev pipes up. “Stan and I know the camp so we should go in.”

“I want to come in,” Richie protests immediately. “I should be there, to see him, he should know I’m there.”

“He’ll know,” Stan says softly. “He always believed you’d come, it’s why he went back. I didn’t always think you- sorry, it’s not like it was personal, I don’t  _ know you  _ so-”

“It’s fine,” Richie says. “But I would go anywhere for Eddie.”

“I can’t imagine being loved like that,” Stan murmurs.

“Knock it off,” Bev says. “You know I’d do it for you. I just don’t wanna make out with you.”

“Likewise,” Stan says dryly, and Richie’s heart aches. He wishes he’d been a best friend like that for Bill. He’s missed so much stuck in his own head, looking for Eddie.

“Okay, so,” Bev claps to get their attention again. He’s not sure when she became the boss of them, but she definitely is now. “Someone needs to wait in the truck so we can leave real quick if we get caught. Actually, maybe you all should. The more people running around, the harder this will be.”

“We didn’t drive all the way here to sit in a truck!” Richie exclaims. “I’m coming in, you have to let me come in.”

He doesn’t say it, but there’s more to it than that, and more to it than needing to see Eddie as soon as humanly possible. He feels like if he sees where Eddie has been all these weeks, where he’s eaten and slept and what he saw every morning, he’ll be able to crack some unfathomable part of it all and know what to do.

Bev gives him a long, unfathomable look, then turns to Stanley and tilts her head.

“We could probably do with the help,” Stanley says eventually. “I mean, if we could do it by ourselves, we’d have done it.”

“It would be a lot harder to catch seven people running around,” Bev muses. “Especially when four of them aren’t...students.”

“They called you students?” Mike frowns.

“They’re ‘teaching’ us, so-” Bev waves a hand. “I dunno, I guess it kind of made sense at the time.”

Richie wonders how deep the brainwashing goes, if on some level it still makes sense to them, if they find any comfort in a familiar hell or if they want to run headfirst into the unknown. Stanley strikes him as the type to prefer a routine, even if it’s killing him, which it seems it nearly did. 

“I think someone needs to stay in the truck to make a quick escape when we have Eddie,” Ben says, softly but like he doesn’t want to argue this one.

Naturally, being six people who love Eddie very much, no one wants to stay in the truck but they eventually settle on leaving Ben and Mike at the wheel, and a plan comes together.

By the time they are drawing close to the camp, the plan is this:

Ben will park, headlights off, on the dirt track that leads to the main entrance.

The four of them who are going into the fray will walk through a short stretch of woods that will spit them out right near Eddie and Stan’s old cabin.

Stanley will circle back to the main building and cause a minor distraction for the staff. 

(Bev isn’t happy about this, but Stanley says that a man called Robert will be with Eddie and there’s no getting him out of that room unnoticed.)

Then Bev and Richie will rescue Eddie from his room whilst Bill watches for anyone coming.

Then it will all be over, and they will flee before anyone can catch them, and everything will be alright.

He is still holding onto this as Ben turns off the lights and slows down as they turn onto a gravel driveway. His heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his throat.

“Are you ready?” Ben asks, eyes shining in the darkness. “Be safe.”

“No revenge,” Mike chips in. “Bring Eddie back here, that’s it.”

Richie gives them both awkward hugs over the tops of the seats, feeling himself and both of them trembling as he clings to them.

“Thank you for coming here,” he says quietly.

“We would never have left Eddie,” Ben replies.

“Or let you do this alone,” Mike says.

“We need to get going,” Bev tells him, tugging on his sleeve, and he hops out of the truck and feels the same earth under his shoes that Eddie has, breathes the same air into his lungs.

“You okay?” Bill asks, and Richie nods grimly.

The four of them traipse off into the wood, Bev and Stan out in front.

“You’re very sure of yourself,” Richie says when they veer right into a thicker patch of trees.

“We come out here all the time,” Stan says. “Kept me sane.”

“Mostly to smoke,” Bev continues. “Sometimes just to get away from the misery of that place.”

“Eddie smokes n-now?” Bill asks, not bothering to hide his surprise.

“Once or twice,” Stan shrugs. “I mean, Bev’s the smoker, but we all have bad days.”

Richie thinks he could be given a million years and never even convince Eddie to come near him whilst he’s smoking. Not that that’s important. If Stanley has seduction powers, then so be it, as long as it makes Eddie happy.

He’s not thinking much about anything other than having Eddie back safe when he sees it, which is why it throws him for such a loop that he can’t even speak past the gasp caught in his throat.

“Richie?” Bev frowns. “What’s up?”

“What the fuck is this?” Richie says eventually, and points to what he’s spotted in the dirt.

_ This  _ is Eddie’s pink polo shirt, the one with the tiny train on it, crumpled in the dirt, half burnt, a smear of blood across the chest, a strip torn from the bottom.

“Oh god,” Bill whispers. “Oh n-no, no, god.”

“What the fuck?!” Richie cries again, his voice breaking. “Why is this out here? What have they done to him, this is Eddie’s, why is it-, what happened to him?!”

“Oh,” Stanley says faintly. He doesn’t sound horrified. He should sound horrified.

“Why aren’t you panicking?!” Richie shouts at him, and Bev hurriedly shushes him.

“Don’t shush him, B-Beverly!” Bill cries. “Th-this is-”

“I know,” Bev says softly. “Calm down, it’s okay.”

Richie is about to yell at her again when she nudges it with her shoe, and he sees the charred remains of another shirt, definitely not Eddie’s, even bloodier.

“That’s mine,” Stanley says. “We left these out here weeks ago, I guess they didn’t burn properly.”

“What?” Richie manages.

“We left these out here ourselves,” Stanley repeats. “It’s not his blood. He’s fine.”

“Stan, you don’t have to-” Bev breaks off, looking uncomfortable.

“Oh,” Bill says, clearly getting it a fraction of a second before Richie does. “S-sorry.”

Stanley waves it off awkwardly somewhere past the blood rushing in Richie’s ears.

They don’t talk for the rest of the walk. Richie still feels like there’s electricity in his blood, and the others are clearly uncomfortable. There are a novel’s worth of unsaid words hanging in the air between them. He just listens to the sound of their feet in the dirt and imagines Eddie walking through these dark woods with them. He will be, soon, even if it’s weeks too late in his eyes.

Just as he’s about to properly lose himself in his thoughts and probably walk into a tree or something, he spots a pinprick of light beyond the trees, a little yellow square hanging in the sky a few short metres away.

“That’s the office,” Bev says. “I guess Robert’s in there. Maybe Lisa.”

“Who’s better?” Richie asks. “Who would Eddie be safer with?”

“Hm.” Bev stops to think for a second. “Neither are good. I think he’d fare better with Robert, but I’m not sure.”

“Robert’s bad,” Stanley contributes, but he doesn’t elaborate, just looks a little haunted.

“Right, but so’s Lisa,” Bev shrugs, and then they’re at the treeline before Richie can push any further. “Okay. Here we go.”

“Oh god,” Bill murmurs.

“All or nothing,” Bev says. “I’m going to look through the window. Richie, stay here.” She turns to Stanley, looks torn and worried for the first time. “You go to the office. Be careful.”

“Yeah,” Stanley says quietly. “If I get caught-”

“Don’t get caught.”

“ _ If  _ I get caught,” he repeats. “Just go. Don’t risk all getting stuck here. Or arrested or whatever.”

“Absolutely not,” Bev smacks him gently in the head. “Go make a racket or something.”

Stanley squeezes her hand, then takes off towards the main building. She watches him go for a minute, eyes sad, then slips around the back of the cabin that she says Eddie will be in.

Richie holds onto a small handful of Bill’s sweater sleeve as they watch in either direction for anyone coming out of the main building or the cabins. Bev says they both need to be out here, but Richie thinks she just doesn’t want them making a scene with Eddie so close.

And Eddie is  _ so  _ close. He’s right behind those walls, separated only by a wall or a pane of glass or a door. He would hear him if he screamed. Richie wonders if he’ll understand as soon as he sees Bev, if he’ll know that Richie is here like he promised he would be, weeks ago.

These all seem like the wrong questions to be asking. All he needs to know is if Eddie will be okay, if he is the same Eddie who left.

The door opens and both Richie and Bill gasp a little, but a tall man with a stern expression steps out into the dark. He can’t pinpoint what it is, but something about this man makes him deeply uncomfortable. He can’t imagine being locked in that room with him.

Just before the door closes, he catches a flash of a light blue sleeve and the profile of a face he knows so well. Eddie’s hair is longer, curly now, but the bend of his nose is the same, and his sharp chin is pointed out in a stubborn little gesture that makes his heart ache.

This is Eddie, alive and breathing and still fighting. Even as the door swings shut, as the man locks it behind him, Richie holds onto that snapshot like it’s the only thing keeping him alive. He wants to hold him, run his hands through that hair, and tell him that whatever he needs, he’ll give. He will invent stories and solutions to make it better, talk and talk until all the wounds are healed.

Bev slips back around the front of the house, fiddles with something in the lock for a moment, then slips inside. Richie watches the pillar of light in the crack of the open door and the shadows moving around within it. He wonders if Bev has mentioned him, or if Eddie has guessed. Maybe the first Eddie will know about it will be the first time they lock eyes again.

It feels like forever before the door opens again and then there is Eddie next to Bev, though his head is ducked and his hands aren’t visible past sleeves too long to be his sweater.

He looks pale and haunted and  _ so  _ damn tired, but he is undeniably Richie’s Eddie.

Bev takes his wrist and then the two of them are running back into the treeline, back to Bill and Richie. Bill looks reverent. Richie can’t even imagine the expression on his face.

He rushes to meet them at the very edge of the woods and stops centimetres from Eddie’s face, takes it all in. The fear in his eyes and the shadows under them, the lips he kissed that are now chewed down and bloody, the thinner shape of his face.

Eddie doesn’t say a word, just stares at him with huge eyes.

There’s nothing to say to make this better, so Richie just throws his arms around him and feels the soft sweater and the warm skin and the bones underneath it, and holds on like he will never let go.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice cracking as Eddie’s arms slowly come up to loosely hold him back, none of the usual fierceness there. “I’m sorry I did this to you.”

“You didn’t,” Eddie whispers, and his voice sounds hoarse and strained. “Not your fault.”

Eddie draws back from the hug and surveys Richie in a way he doesn’t quite understand. He looks like he’s trying to figure out something unknowable. There isn’t much warmth there, and it frightens him.

“Eddie!” Bill arrives at their side. “Oh, you’re s-safe, you’re okay! You have n-no idea how m-much I’ve  _ missed you _ !”

“Hi,” Eddie says, and he still looks weak and frightened, but a little tension seems to leave him. “It’s...really good to see you.”

“Sorry to break this up,” Bev cuts in. “But we have to get back to the truck. Eddie, you can see Ben and Mike.”

“Cool,” Eddie says faintly. “Stan?”

“Will meet us there,” Bev says, and then she takes off back the way they came.

Richie isn’t sure what to say, so he just turns to Eddie and smiles at him, a little shaky, a little unsure, and starts to walk. 

He wants to take his hand. It feels like the comforting thing to do, and he can’t bear the idea of letting him walk alone, but holding his hand feels like a romantic thing suddenly, and Eddie looks distinctly like he might flee at the slightest gesture. He doesn’t want to scare him, so he keeps on walking, listening to Eddie trailing behind and feeling like this is some kind of odd Orpheus and Eurydice type thing, although hopefully with a happier ending.

“Eddie,” he says eventually, because he can’t bear this strangeness. “Come walk with me.”

“Okay,” Eddie’s voice drifts back, and he falls in step beside him, and he isn’t sure if this is going to make everything alright, but it feels like a start.

* * *

When Richie pulls him into a warm hug, the first thing Eddie thinks is  _ Jesus, that’s a bit tight. _

He’s not sure why this comes to mind, because they’ve hugged like that before, though admittedly it wasn’t quite such an intense moment. It just feels, in those few seconds, like it’s entirely too much.

This is probably not a good sign, some part of his brain thinks dully. He has never thought this before, and theoretically, this should be the greatest moment of his life. The triumphant climax of some shitty movie where the...lovers, no that’s not right, where the friends reunite to swelling orchestral music and there are tears of joy and everything is suddenly okay.

Eddie doesn’t feel okay, and if he’s going to cry, it’s not going to be because of happiness.

But Richie is looking at him like he hung the moon in the sky, and he doesn’t want to let him down so he hugs him back and reassures him. As they stand together, he’s suddenly gripped by a bizarre fear that Richie is going to kiss him again, and he can’t handle that right now, he doesn’t know what to do with that right now, but when he searches Richie’s face for any sign that he might, there is nothing there.

At the end of it all, he’s just glad to see his best friend.

Richie is Richie, and however he feels about him, he is so glad that he’s here to save him. He never doubted him really. Richie is a comic book kind of hero.

And Bill, god, he could dedicate the rest of his life to any and all charitable purposes, change the world, give and give and give, and he’d still never deserve Bill as his best friend. Bill is unfailingly good and kind despite everything, because Eddie knows the things his parents say behind closed doors and he knows why Bill really stutters, and that beyond all of it, Bill will still smile and walk Georgie to the bus stop and buy him sweets on the way home. He has missed him so much. He sort of wishes he’d talked about him more. Bill deserves that, although he’s sure Bev and Stan love him anyway, love all of his friends, because how could anyone not? They have travelled across the country to save him. They have loved him enough to do this, so he cannot be broken because they cannot lose.

So he walks alongside Richie, Bill, and Bev, back through the woods they used to smoke in, and they keep staring at him like they don’t know what to say.

“It’s really good to see you,” Richie says eventually, and his voice is shaking. “I’ve, uh, missed you. A lot.”

“I didn’t think you’d find me,” Eddie tells him, and at Richie’s crestfallen expression, adds, “Until I called you, I mean.”

“Well, of  _ course  _ I came to get you, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie replies, a tiny bit of cheer creeping back into his voice. “Couldn’t leave you here all on your own, could I?”

“I wasn’t...on my own,” Eddie says, because it feels like an awful lot of effort to fight about that stupid nickname right now. “I had Bev and Stan.”

“But the last few days-”

“I was fine,” he says, quickly cutting him off. The last few days are a blur to him. He’s not even sure how long he’s been in that room. He’s not even sure what happened in there. He knows that his hands are hurting and there is a sore patch on his head. A few fragments of conversation hang at the edges of his mind, out of reach but still unnerving him as he walks.

“Eddie-” Bill starts.

“Can we just get back to the car?” Eddie asks, and tries to keep his voice from wobbling.

“Of course,” Richie says, but the worry in his voice betrays him. “Not far now, Eds. Though it’s a truck, actually.”

There’s a painful pause where he’s clearly waiting for Eddie to yell at him for calling him Eds, but he can’t speak past the lump in his throat.

The truck isn’t far at all. Except it’s definitely not a truck he recognises. He had been imagining Mike’s farm truck, a battered old thing that he hadn’t been thrilled about getting into for a trip across the whole country, but this is a sleek, shiny machine that doesn’t look like it could fall apart like a clown car at the slightest push.

“Where the hell did this come from?” Eddie asks, wondering how long he’s been away, and if he’s scrubbed some long torture from his memory entirely. 

“Oh!” Richie says, and Bill laughs. “God, Eddie, you won’t believe who we ran into. You remember your old neighbour? Don?”

“How do you have Don’s truck?” Eddie blinks a little at it, trying to remember if Don moved away or if his mother just stopped letting him out, and what happened to Adrian? He’s sure something happened to Adrian.

“We met him at a m-motel,” Bill says. “It was c-crazy.”

“Eddie!” And here’s Ben, tearing out of the passenger seat and running to him faster than he’s ever seen him run (oh, Ben is  _ fast  _ actually) to wrap him in a warm, gentle hug. He’s more careful than Richie, and he smells like fresh laundry, which is weirdly comforting. Eddie squeezes back, burying his face in the shoulder of his hoodie.

“Hey, Ben,” he murmurs. “Thanks for showing up.”

“As if I wouldn’t,” Ben says. “I like the new hair by the way.”

“It’s a good look,” says another voice, and then Mike is there too, and god, so many people to go through this routine with, but he’s so happy to see him. “Hey, Eddie.”

“Mike,” Eddie says, and for reasons beyond him, does a strange little wave.

“Are you okay if I give you a hug?” Mike asks, and it’s so  _ Mike  _ to ask first and acknowledge that he must be struggling, that it nearly brings tears to his eyes.

Plus, a Mike hug sounds like exactly what he needs right now, so he nods and Mike laughs and pulls him into a hug, lifting his feet slightly off the ground.

“We’ve been so worried!” Mike tells him. “God, Eddie, we had no idea where you were and then we found out and-”

“Yeah,” Eddie manages. “I tried to call Bill but-”

“Georgie,” Bill says, and smiles a little sadly. “He did pass the message on though.”

“Bless,” Eddie says quietly, starting to feel like he’s slightly disjointed from the rest of them. 

“What the hell is Stan doing?” Bev cuts in, trying to sound casual, but clearly concerned. “He should be back by now.”

“He’ll be here,” Ben reassures her quickly. “I promise.” Eddie looks back and forth between them, trying to figure out what he’s picking up on here.

“You should get in the truck, Eddie,” Mike says, hand on his shoulder. “It’s warm in there, and we’ll need to leave fast.”

Eddie doesn’t reply, craning his neck to look for some sign of Stan in the distance. What could he be doing? Has he been caught, trying to save him?

“I really think we should get in the truck,” Ben says anxiously.

“We’re not leaving without Stan!” Bev half yells, sounding on the verge of hysterics. 

“Of course not,” Ben says, but he’s starting to look unsure.

Eddie climbs into the back, squashed between Richie and Bill, and feels sick with anxiety. They cannot lose Stan because he came back for him. He will never forgive himself if he puts Stan through even another day of this place.

“If he got caught-” Richie starts.

“He’s not been caught!” Bev snaps back.

“We have to wait,” Eddie says, a little desperate.

Come on, Stan, he thinks to himself. Please, please, please.

The woods stay dark and empty. There is no sign of any living creature here. Eddie’s heart is in his throat.

“Fuck,” Richie whispers to himself. “Shit, fuck, shit.”

Then, just as he’s quite sure someone is about to say the thing that no one wants to hear, Stan appears at the edge of the road, white as a sheet and sweating, but  _ here. _ Within seconds, Ben has the door open and Stan is scrambling in next to him.

There is a moment where everyone just sits there, breathing hard with adrenaline. They’ve done it. They are all safe, here in this truck off a little dirt road in California. What happens next is anyone’s guess, but right now, everything is okay.

“Uh,” Stan breaks into a shaky grin. “Hi, Eddie. Good to see you.”

“Hey, Stan,” Eddie says, and leans over the seat to give him an awkward hug. As he pulls away, he notices Richie watching with an unreadable expression. “Where the hell were you?”

“Sorry,” Stan huffs. “I wanted to get something from the office as well, and then I had to hide until Lisa left.”

“What did you want?” Bev looks concerned suddenly, and Eddie remembers the last time Stan stole from the office.

Stan leans over the seats again and whispers something into Bev’s ear. Her face shifts from concern to a sort of sad smile, and she squeezes Stan’s hand as he drops back into his seat. 

“Let’s go,” Mike says. “And not a second too soon. Welcome back, Eddie.”

The engine hums beneath the seats, and Eddie lets his shoulder press into Richie’s as they speed away. When he turns his head, he watches the sign for the Wilhelm Stekel Center get smaller and smaller, until eventually it is swallowed by darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the moment we've all been waiting for! it only took 50k words to get to. as always, thank you for reading! 
> 
> come chat on tumblr @grumpystan


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dogs, diners, and Don.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's a little late! sorry for the wait, i got coronavirus and spent a straight week half awake and blitzed on paracetamol. but i am fully recovered and on lockdown, so i should have plenty of time for writing now!
> 
> and for the first time in FAR too long, there are no trigger warnings for this chapter! nothing new occurs and all events referenced are far more vague than they were in earlier chapters. because we need that right now

Richie spends much of the next portion of the car ride watching Eddie’s face next to him as it’s illuminated by the street lamps they whiz past before being plunged into shadow again.

Eddie isn’t saying much. He is pale and his hands are shaking, but he’s here, and Richie is grateful for that small mercy, even though he can’t help but feel like they’ve left some part of him behind.

He thinks later that this part of Eddie may have been left behind in Derry when his mother snatched him away, that it was gone long before he reached that terrible camp. If it can be recovered, it will be back in the streets they used to cycle down before everything got so difficult.

“So…” Ben says, breaking the silence. 

“I’m okay,” Eddie says unsteadily. “I am.”

Eddie punctuates this by suddenly lurching forward, heaving hard enough that Richie can practically feel the ache in his ribs.

“Woah!” Mike screeches to a halt on the side of the road, mercifully a quiet country road, no other cars, and Eddie stumbles out and throws up into the bushes.

“Ah shit,” Bev mutters and scrambles out after him, Richie and the others hot on her heels.

“Eds, you okay?” Richie murmurs, crouching uncomfortably beside him in the dirt road. “Come on, talk to me.”

“Mm,” Eddie replies, wiping his mouth roughly with his hand, which makes Stan grimace. “Yeah, I-”

He goes quiet for a moment, and Richie can see him strain to remember what he was going to say. 

“Back to the truck?” Ben asks gently. “Better out than in, hey Eddie?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says vaguely, blinking hard. “I’m okay. I’m okay, we need to keep moving.”

Richie goes to take his elbow (like some suitor in a period drama dance scene) but Bill is there first, letting Eddie lean against him a little, their skinny arms hooked together like links in a chain. Eddie says nothing to him, but Bill is whispering very softly as he walks. The words are indistinguishable, but he doesn’t stutter once.

Stan and Bev are lingering behind him, and when he turns to look, he can see that they’re having some kind of silent conversation with their eyes. He’s never been one to appreciate silence, and when they catch him staring, they both look guilty.

“What?” Richie asks, when they’re the only three left standing in the road.

“Uh,” Bev says. “I think that one’s best left to Eddie.”

“I just want to help,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady.

“You can’t,” Stanley says flatly, and at Richie’s expression, he hurries to clarify. “I mean, it’s not hopeless, but sometimes some people just have to figure things out on their own. And you can’t always help. It doesn’t make you a bad friend.”

Bev reaches out and squeezes Stan’s shoulder and Richie feels like he might be missing something, but he doesn’t ask.

Back in the truck, the tension is heavy. This isn’t what he’d imagined having Eddie back would be like. He had known, of course, that it wouldn’t be easy, that it was going to take time to get things back to normal, but he had at least thought Eddie would be able to smile at seeing them. 

Eddie is looking out of the window, eyes only half open. He looks like he wants to sleep, and Richie wants to tell him that it’s okay, that nothing will happen if he closes his eyes for a bit. 

“Um,” Mike says eventually, his voice cutting through the silence. “We’re really glad to see you, Eddie. And we love you. No matter what.” 

Everyone else murmurs their agreement, and something unreadable flashes in Eddie’s eyes for a moment before they go blank again. 

“I’m sorry I told them,” Richie says quietly, and for the first time, Eddie has a visible reaction. In the dim lights of the truck, he smiles shakily at Richie and shakes his head a little.  _ It doesn’t matter, _ he’s saying.  _ It is what it is. _ It’s small and watery and only a fraction of the loud, bright enigma that is Eddie Kaspbrak, but he’s there, peering through the cracks.

No one seems to have anything else to say after that. There’s nothing to celebrate yet, not until they’re safe back in Derry and Eddie is okay again, so they drive on in silence. Country roads are kind of eerie at night. They’re way off the beaten track and he can’t imagine what it was like for Bev and Stan to walk along the side of the road in the dark, alone and scared. He hopes they will get better too. They seem kind, and Eddie seems to adore them, which is good enough for him.

They carry on in silence until the sky turns from pitch black to a deep navy, then the colour of a bruise, until vivid orange streaks appear on the horizon. California sunrises are very pretty. Richie hopes Eddie has been watching them.

The quiet is finally ended by the rumbling of someone’s stomach. No one owns up (although Richie has his suspicions) because they’re all feeling it now.

“We can stop for breakfast soon,” Mike says. “The next diner, yeah? But don’t show your face too much. We’re all, uh, being looked for.”

“I think my mom called the cops,” Ben says grimly. “And you three…”

“They’re not putting posters up for us,” Bev replies. “The cops will be looking, but a lot people take the side of the kid when a poster says they ran away from conversion therapy.”

“Especially when the word ‘vulnerable’ starts getting thrown around,” Stan chips in. “Reputation above all with these people.”

Eddie frowns deeply, but doesn’t offer any thoughts, and no one pushes the conversation until they draw up to a diner in the harsh early morning light.

As the engine hums to a halt, Beverly, who is sitting by the window, lets out a hoot of genuine  _ joy _ , and tears out of the truck before anyone can stop her.

“What the f-fuck?” Bill frowns.

“Stan!” Bev calls. “Eddie! Get out here!”

“Is something wrong?” Mike calls, but Stan and Eddie are already hopping out of the truck and letting out the first laughs they’ve heard from either of them.

“Ohhh,” Ben says, peering out. “Ohh!”

Eddie, Bev, and Stan have reconvened at a tree by the diner, and all three are crouched on the ground crooning over a huge, shaggy dog who looks like all of his furry prayers have been answered.

The tension drains straight out of him and the rest of them follow their lead.

“Hey, puppy!” Richie says, dropping to his knees next to Eddie and scratching the dog’s ears as its tail beats against the ground. “Hello, cutie.”

“I haven’t seen a dog in so long,” Bev laughs, letting the dog paw at her knee. “Not since before the camp.”

Stanley says nothing, quietly enraptured. He looks like a different person when he smiles. 

“Hey,” Ben says, checking the dog’s name tag. “He’s called Kojak!”

“That’s unique,” Mike comments. 

“Don’t make fun of his name!” Eddie shoots back, voice light. “He’s a good boy!”

Eventually, Kojak starts to look a little tired of their fussing, so they head inside the diner, which is a cutesy little affair with  _ Crazy Little Thing Called Love _ playing on the jukebox and enough empty tables that they will go largely unnoticed.

They all order large breakfasts (well, the four of them who embarked on the rescue mission do, and Bev orders pancakes on behalf of Stan and Eddie, who look like they might protest) and wolf them down at a sticky table by a window as they blink in the bright sunlight and Richie starts to think that California is quite a nice place to be.

As they eat, Mike tells the story of the truck breaking down and Bev chips in with suggestions because apparently she’s quite the expert in roadside assistance. Richie isn’t very surprised by this, though the genuine interest Eddie seems to be taking in her explanation throws him for a loop just a little bit. Maybe he doesn’t know Eddie’s interests as well as he thought, but it’s just nice to see a spark in his eyes.

Eddie catches him looking and for one moment that seems to stretch out sideways into forever, they look at each other, and his lips are quirked into the tiny amused expression they always used to be, and he feels like everything might be alright.

“We have some money left,” Ben says as he lays out bills for their breakfast. “We should really stick to eating the food we brought with us, but we can stay at the motel we met Don at again.”

“Please tell me it wasn’t filthy,” Stan murmurs, as if he doesn’t look like someone who’s been walking through California heat for a few days. “If it’s filthy, you should just send me back.”

“Stan, there could be a huge talking spider in there and it would be better than camp,” Bev huffs. “We are absolutely not sending you back.”

“Oh, shut  _ up  _ about the spider,” Eddie shudders. “Really though, how bad?”

“Not that bad,” Ben promises, which is fair because Richie has a feeling Eddie will not accept a judgement on this from anyone else. “Really, it was a surprisingly nice place.”

“Ben knows what he’s talking about,” Eddie tells Stan wisely. 

“I’m gonna go outside and see the puppy again,” Bev says suddenly. “Eddie, Stan?”

There’s a slight edge to her voice and Richie has a feeling this is some urgent private chat not meant for the rest of them. Breakfast may have been a brief respite, but it must be starting to weigh on their shoulders again.

Eddie and Stan agree with no fuss, and the four of them watch as they traipse out, shoulder to shoulder on heavy legs. They must be exhausted, he thinks. It’s impressive they’ve held it together this long.

“Should we steal that dog for them?” Richie asks once they’re out of earshot. He’s only half joking.

“Um,” Bill says. “No.”

“You are no fun at all,” Richie tells him sadly. “Okay fine, we’ll leave Kojak where he is. Maybe we can get Eddie a different dog.”

“I don’t think we can just find Eddie a dog,” Ben says gently. “We don’t even know where he’s going to live.”

“With me,” Richie replies, because this should be obvious.

“Right,” Mike looks unsure, but he covers it well. “They’re welcome to come and see the farm animals any time. We do have lots of babies being born.”

“Mike, your children can solve anything,” Richie says earnestly. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking widely enough with the dog. Maybe we should give them all a sheep.”

“Eddie’s going to be okay,” Mike tells him gently, which is weird because Richie totally knows that and he’s not worried. “It’s going to be a long road, but we don’t have to give him a sheep.”

“I know that,” Richie replies. Everyone politely ignores the wobble in his voice. “Um, should we go? We want to get Don his truck back, I guess. And the sooner Eddie’s back in Derry, the better.”

“Yeah,” Bill says. “We should g-go. Let’s get th-the others.”

They pay their waitress, only leaving a smaller tip this time because they’re starting to run low, and head outside to take Eddie home.

* * *

Eddie is totally, completely fine.

The problem here is that he knows he’s lying to himself.

He is kneeling on the ground outside the diner with Stan and Bev, and he feels okay, and this seems very wrong. He keeps waiting for the big comedown, when the adrenaline shoots out of him and deflates him like a balloon, but it’s not coming. He’s shaky and sick, but he thinks it’s the drugs coming out of his system. And okay, sure, he doesn’t want to talk about what happened with Richie, doesn’t want to kiss him right now, but he’s still glad to see his friend. 

Whenever he’d read about these things before, late at night on the family computer with the blankets shoved under the door so his mother couldn’t see the light, he had imagined it like in the stories. He would be soft and sad, and he would feel his stomach turn every time a guy looked at him.

It’s not like that. He feels like there’s a hard shell around him, and it’s holding him together but he can’t let anyone else in. If he opens it the tiniest bit, if he tells Richie about those last few days in the room, or about Stan behind the bathroom door, or Bev’s tears in the office, the whole thing is going to crack beyond repair.

“I missed pancakes,” Bev is saying, and he realises she’s been talking and he hasn’t heard a word. “I mean, I feel  _ so  _ sick right now, but dry toast just does not cut it.”

Eddie has a strong feeling she is doing the same thing as him. Credit where credit is due, at least Stan is letting himself feel something.

“The pancakes are good,” he says, so she won’t climb down his throat. “But we’ll get better food back in Derry. Richie’s mom makes the best cookies. She burns like everything else, but her cookies are amazing.”

“I will absolutely hold you to that,” Bev replies, scratching the dog’s ears absentmindedly. “Is Richie’s mom nice?”

“Maggie’s the best,” he says. “I used to go round there all the time after my dad died and my mom was-”

The words catch in his throat all of a sudden. In the midst of all this chaos surrounding him, he hasn’t been thinking about his mother. She will be in Derry too when they get back, and he’s not foolish enough to think he can avoid her forever. She’ll hunt him down and even his wonderful, brave friends can’t stop that particular reckoning.

“Eddie?” Stan looks up at him, frowning in the most display of emotion from him Eddie has seen since that night in the woods. “Are you okay?”

“Uh,” he says. “I guess. Given the circumstances and all.”

Stan reaches over and squeezes his hand.

A few moments later, his friends barrel out of the diner and he drops it quickly. It’s not that he’s afraid Richie (or any of his friends) will think there’s something going on between them, there quite obviously isn’t, but he doesn’t want them to think there’s some unbridgeable gap between them now. It’s just easier to accept comfort from the people who went through hell with him. They don’t understand. He prays they never will.

“You ready to g-go?” Bill asks, smiling kindly. Good old Bill. He would have lost it back on the roads near the camp without him. 

“Yeah, I’m ready,” he says, forcing a small smile back onto his face and ignoring Bev’s raised eyebrow and Stan’s frown. “Let’s roll, yeah?”

Back in the truck, he sits between Richie and Mike. Ben is driving for this leg and he’s painfully slow, which would have annoyed him at any other time, but he suspects he may still be vulnerable to throwing up his breakfast. Instead of complaining, he lets the exhaustion in his bones take the lead and slumps into his seat.

He must close his eyes at some point, because suddenly the sun is higher and brighter, and Richie is shoving a bag of chips right into his face.

“You want some?” Richie asks through a mouthful of chips, and Eddie winces as he’s nearly sprayed with the orange dust.

“Thanks,” he says. He doesn’t really want any, but he definitely doesn’t want to worry them by refusing food. He knows how skinny he is after the last few weeks. 

As he crunches on a few, there’s an uncomfortable silence and he realises they have definitely been talking about him whilst he was asleep. Whatever they have to say, he hopes they can get it over with fast, because he really doesn’t have the energy for profound conversation right now.

“Hey,” Mike says, sliding down a little in his seat so his head is level with Eddie’s, who has sunk so low that his chin is resting on the seatbelt. “When we get back, you can see the baby animals if you want.”

“The babies were born?” Eddie murmurs. He remembers now that it’s the season where the new animals are always born on the farm. Every year, he goes down there and panics about the hygiene of picking them all up and cuddling them, then does it anyway.

“Yep,” Mike says, and he smiles like he realises he’s getting through. “Georgie got to pet a lamb.”

“I love Georgie,” Eddie says. “Bill, he must be missing you.”

“I’m m-missing him,” Bill says, but smiles warmly. Everyone smiles at him so much now. It’s disconcerting.

“Do you have any birds?” Stan asks very softly, so softly that Eddie has to put the words together in his head.

“We have ducks!” Mike says brightly. “I’ve been keeping the incubator in our kitchen whilst we wait for the eggs to hatch, but they should have whilst we were away. My granddad will be looking after them.”

“Oh,” Stanley replies, then a small but very genuine smile appears on his face. “I like ducks.”

“You’ll be the first to see them,” Mike promises, and smiles fondly as Stan drops back into his seat next to Bev with brighter eyes and lets her lightly punch his shoulder.

“Eds, drink some water,” Richie’s voice says to his right, and he twists a little to see him holding out a bottle. “Can’t just scarf those carbs all the time, right?”

“Don’t call me Eds,” he says, because he thinks that’s probably what Richie wants to hear, and he wants to see him smile again. Richie’s smile has this tendency to make everything okay.

“Okay, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie says, and  _ beams  _ so widely that Eddie feels a little burst of pride. At least he can still make Richie smile if he can’t kiss him. “You’re just dehydrated.”

Eddie takes the water and chugs half the bottle as Richie cheers like it’s a drinking game. He’s such a dork.

“I think I need to go back to sleep,” he murmurs. He feels a bit guilty, because his friends have come so far to see him again and all he wants to do is sleep.

“That’s okay, Eddie,” Ben says from the front seat. “Get your energy back.”

“Stan and I have been sleeping too,” Bev’s voice drifts forward from the back. “It’s been a long time since we could...sleep without being on guard.”

“Or waiting for you to bust into my room for a smoke,” Stan says fondly, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“Or that,” Bev says, resting her head on his shoulder. “Go sleep, Eddie.”

Bev is right. He feels safe here in this truck with his friends, and he knows if Robert or Lisa were to somehow show up (and even the thought makes him feel so sick he nearly asks Mike for a bag to vomit into) they would do anything and everything to keep him by their sides, and he’s tired enough that he doesn’t have to figure out how to switch off his survival mode.

Sleep takes him again as Ben’s mixtapes play, and he thinks that California and Maine both feel a very very long way away.

Later, a few hours after he wakes up and eats half a cheese sandwich that Ben buys him at a gas station (he cannot stop thinking about the  _ germs _ ) they arrive at a little motel that admittedly doesn’t look too grimy (for a motel) and Mike’s farm truck is parked outside.

“She looks g-good,” Bill says, craning his neck. “Looks like Don got her all fixed up.”

“My hero,” Ben says, for what Eddie suspects is not the first time. “Can we try and get the chip smell out of his truck before we give it back?”

“Oh, that’s never coming out,” Richie grins. “Don won’t mind, he’s cool. He says I remind him of him when he was our age.”

“I still feel bad,” Mike says. “He gave us a  _ truck _ .”

“We also gave him one,” Richie says brightly. “Mike’s truck is the best.”

The window is open, so Eddie ignores the conversation and tilts his head out to breathe in the fresh air. In the background, Richie and Mike continue to chatter about the truck, Ben and Bill occasionally interjecting. Bill has little to contribute other than liking the colour and the stickers, but he engages as easily as he always did. Eddie isn’t sure what to say anymore.

“Boys!” A voice says from across the lot, and here is Don, and Eddie is struck by such an aching longing for childhood again that he nearly keels over. “And...girl, I see.”

Bev salutes.

“How did you know we were here?” Ben asks, eyes wide. He might be starting to think Don has superpowers, Eddie can see the cogs turning in his mind.

“I can hear Richie from my room,” Don says, smiling gently. “It’s very good to see you, Eddie.”

“Hi,” Eddie says, suddenly feeling a lump in his throat. Do not cry in front of your friends, he tells himself. Not now. “It’s good to see you too.”

“We should go and get rooms,” Mike says. “Eddie, do you want to stay and talk to Don?”

“Yeah,” he says quickly, and doesn’t look at him. “Okay.”

Mike claps him on the shoulder, and Richie looks reluctant to let him out of his sight for a moment, but follows the others after an arm squeeze that lasts a fraction of a second too long.

Then they are all gone, and he’s sitting in Don’s truck leaning out of the window and trying not to make direct eye contact.

“You wanna sit up front?” Don asks gently.

“Okay,” Eddie says meekly, and scrambles up to sit in the passenger seat (“Shotgun!” says the tiny Richie who lives in his head) as Don gets into the driver’s seat. His heart is racing again, and he tucks his hands behind his back and leans on them to stop the shaking. Don is no risk, he knows that. Don is kind and gentle and a precious artifact from his childhood, but he can’t shake the feeling of being in that room with Robert and how afraid and disgusted he felt.

“I remember when you were very little,” Don starts. “You used to play in the street outside our house. Such a happy little kid.”

Eddie swallows hard and nods, staring at his feet.

“Adrian thought you were hilarious. Bright and loud, and such a fast runner. And then your dad died.”

“And then my dad died,” Eddie echoes miserably.

“We didn’t see you so much after that. Your mom always dragged you straight back in. Adrian used to talk about calling the cops and trying to adopt you ourselves.”

“I’d have liked that,” Eddie cracks a smile. “I’m sorry he died.”

“He was pretty great,” Don sighs. “It sometimes feels like people like us are just always going to suffer, doesn’t it?”

“People like us,” Eddie says softly. “Yeah.”

“I was so angry when Adrian died,” Don continues. “It didn’t feel fair- it  _ wasn’t _ fair, and it felt like a punishment. For being who we were. Like a reminder that it’s always going to be harder. And I thought it would never end.”

Eddie claps a hand over his mouth and lets a few tears escape.

“It’s going to be okay, Eddie,” he says. “You don’t let this swallow you, okay? You go home with your boy and you let him help you, and one day you come to a motel for your job which you love, and you help the next kid who needs it.”

“I want to,” Eddie whispers. “I’m so scared. I feel so wrong.”

“I know,” he tells him. “And it might feel worse before it feels better. You can grieve. You lost something. I can’t imagine what it was like for you in there. In that camp, and in that house with your mother. But you’re not wrong. You have always been brave and funny and kind, and Adrian died thinking that and I still believe it.”

Eddie starts to sob, and Don puts a hand on his back, gently rubs it.

“You’re okay,” he tells him again. “Be sad, be sorry, but don’t drown in it. There’s a wonderful future for you out there. Everyone can see it. You survived all of that, you can be anything you want to be.”

“Thanks, Don,” Eddie sniffs, wiping his eyes. “It was just- I can’t talk about it, I don’t think. But the way they  _ talked- _ ”

“They’re wrong,” Don says. “And they’re idiots who think this is the most fulfilling thing they can do with their lives. You know who you can trust in your life, Eddie. Listen to those people who love you and want you to be happy. No one else matters at all.”

“It’s not that simple,” he says weakly. “I can’t just forget.”

“Of course not. But you promise me you’ll keep working on it. You’ll get there one day. Keep your friends close and find a good therapist, and you’ll put everything back together.”

“I’m not going to be the same, am I?” Eddie murmurs. “Ever again.”

“Maybe not,” Don says sympathetically. “But you can be alright. When I lost Adrian I spiralled for a long time. But I wouldn’t be able to talk to you like this if I hadn’t been through that. I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“But you’d rather have Adrian.”

Don smiles a little sadly at him and squeezes his shoulder.

“We can’t choose that kind of thing, Eddie,” he says. “We can just choose what we do when the dust clears.”

“I think I’m still waiting for the dust to clear,” he says, and clears his throat. He has a pounding headache now, but he thinks if he drinks some water he’ll feel a bit better. “Thank you. For talking to me.”

“Whatever you need,” Don says immediately. “You can call me, I’ll give you a more permanent number. And stop by tomorrow before you leave?”

“I will,” Eddie promises. “Sorry for crying all over your truck. And the smell.”

“Don’t you worry about any of that,” Don smiles. “You have other things to focus on right now.”

Eddie leans over and gives him a quick hug. He wonders for a second what it would have been like if he had grown up with Don and Adrian, if he’d be better, but Don is right. There’s no point in that. He can’t choose his lot in life.

He wipes his eyes again and says goodbye, then heads into the motel.

Richie is waiting for him in the lobby.

“Hey, Eds,” he says. “Have you been crying?”

“Um,” Eddie says, a little watery. “Yeah. Some.”

“I’m sorry,” Richie tells him, a little awkward.

“That’s okay,” Eddie replies. “No one’s fault.”

“Do you want to go upstairs?” Richie asks. “We’re sharing a room with Bill, we thought we could watch some shitty game shows. Or a movie. Depends what’s on.”

“That sounds nice,” Eddie says, and sniffs a little. “You can’t pick.”

“I’ll let you have that,” Richie says, mock kindly. “Just this once.”

“You’re so generous,” Eddie manages, and it sounds like something the old Eddie would say. 

Richie starts bounding up the stairs, and he follows him, and he hopes that Don is right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading and sticking with me so long <3 we're nearly at the end now!
> 
> as always i am on tumblr @grumpystan and i love to talk


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i start every chapter with an excuse as to my absence so i'm not even gonna get into that this time. may sucked. i'm really glad to be back on track! also i have important things to say in the end notes, please read
> 
> warnings: brief discussions of events of previous chapters

Eddie has this very strong feeling that he’s not going to be able to sleep in an actual bed.

The truck is different. The truck is safe. The truck is not like a bed in a little cabin room that creaks when he turns over or when other people sit down on it. 

He’s definitely not relaying any of this to Richie or Bill, so they watch movies instead. The words go in one ear and out the other, and sometimes he blinks and is certain he sees the actors from the movies at the camp with moral lessons that turn his stomach. When he opens his eyes, they’re gone again.

To their credit, Richie and Bill are both watching him closely, but either he’s a better actor than he realised or they put it down to just exhaustion, because no one calls him out on it. The movies end and Bill scrunches himself up on the little couch in the corner, falling asleep almost instantly.

“Did you know he’s not going to speech therapy anymore?” Richie whispers into the dark. “His parents want to pay for better therapy for Georgie.”

“Oh,” Eddie murmurs, struck by the realisation that everyone has shit going on. His might be the worst, but he makes a note to cut Bill some slack if he’s not noticing the warning signs. “That sucks.”

“I don’t know how some parents are like that,” Richie says, and the mattress creaks as he lies down, although Eddie can only see a dark mass as he lies down alongside him. “I can run all the way to California, and I’m pretty sure mine will just be glad to see me.”

“That’s good,” Eddie tells the darkness. He’s facing his bedside table and he knows Richie is facing the other, but he feels like their spines are knotting together. “I’m glad you have them.”

“You don’t have to go back there,” Richie says. “To your mom, I mean. You can come live with us. With me, I mean.”

“Okay.” He isn’t sure what else to say.

“You don’t have to,” Richie amends. “I mean, you can live wherever you want. With whoever you want. But you shouldn’t be with your mom. I’ll come and visit you if you want to live with someone else.”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. He isn’t sure. He wants to stay with Richie, wants to live in his house with Maggie and Went, but at the same time it scares him. Like he’ll slip again and do something bad and end up right back there.

That’s the other problem. He keeps thinking of it as something bad. It’s not, and he knows it, because that would make Richie bad, and Richie could never be anything but perfect.

“That’s okay,” Richie says softly, like he can hear Eddie’s thoughts. Sometimes he thinks he can. “You have time to think about it.”

“Mhm.”

“But right now you should sleep,” Richie mumbles. “Mostly because I want to sleep.”

He stretches one hand out and tangles it with Eddie’s. They’re lying back to back in the dark, and he feels like all their bones are knotted together like the skeletons of the lovers found in the ground. Inseparable, but cold. An eternity woven together.

His skin is on fire. It doesn’t feel like the romantic way he’s read in his mother’s trashy airport romances. It just hurts.

“Richie,” he whispers. “What are we doing?”

For a long moment, there is no reply.

“I don’t know,” Richie says eventually. “Waiting on you, Spaghetti.”

There’s nothing else to say to that. He has no idea how long he might leave Richie waiting. Long enough that Richie will get less and less sure that the time sunk into him was worth the effort, until finally his feelings for Eddie are more bitterness than love. He’ll stray one day, and Eddie won’t blame him. He wasn’t worth the distance from Maine to California, and he won’t be worth the time it takes to put himself back together.

He thinks he might be losing time.

Richie is asleep, and he could have sworn their conversation was just two minutes ago, but the alarm clock on the bedside table is glowing an unseasonably early hour at him so he must have stopped existing in every minute somewhere along the way.

Eddie might be one to jump at every shadow and then laugh at himself because, okay, it’s not  _ really  _ scary, but this is scary. And when things get scary in the way they’ve gotten scary lately, he’s usually only had one person to turn to and share the darkness with.

Stanley is in room 182, two doors down the hall, and that feels like too far now. Bill is long asleep too, and Eddie suspects he needs it. Plus, he sleeps like the dead anyway. There will be no stirring him until morning and even then it’ll probably take Richie doing something appalling to him. He knows the drill.

But he doesn’t want to be alone in the quiet right now, so he creeps out into the hall.

Stan will be awake. Stan is a night owl, used to sneaking out at all hours with Bev, or just staying up haunted by himself.

This hypothesis turns out to be correct, as he knocks on the door to 182 and it creaks open within seconds so he is met by Stan’s huge gray eyes and Bev watching from where she’s folded herself up on the bed.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he whispers, voice hoarse (why is his voice hoarse?) and Stan nods with a kind of sad understanding before letting him in.

“Hello, Ed,” Bev says softly, and he curls up at the edge of the bed like a cat. “You doing okay?”

“I think I’m going crazy,” he tells her. “And Richie and Bill are asleep.”

“You’re not crazy,” Stan says. “Or maybe we all are. Then at least there’s solidarity.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Eddie says dryly, managing to smile at him.

“You wanna talk?” Bev asks, sitting up neatly (Eddie swears he hears every bone in his and Stan’s bodies crack when they do the same) and crossing her legs. “How are you feeling about Derry?”

“I dunno. I guess familiarity is good.” It’s the most truthful vague answer he can give.

“Are you staying with Richie? Mike says he has room for both of us on his farm, if we want.” Stan smiles a bit, but looks concerned.

“Probably,” he says, kicking the edge of the bed and listening to the dull thuds. “Mike’s farm will be good. You guys can hang out with the animals.”

“A year ago I’d have  _ died  _ at the concept of living on a farm,” Stan says. “So many germs.”

“And now you’ll take anywhere?” Bev pokes him in the shoulder.

“Almost,” Stan shrugs. “I’m still never going in a public toilet.”

“Exactly,” Eddie says sagely. “Good call.”

“Stop deflecting,” Bev tells him. “Let’s talk about Derry.”

“I don’t want to see my mom,” he says, because he knows if he builds up to it, he’s going to chicken out of saying it. “Ever again, I mean. I think...I think she was worse than I ever realised. And she’s not as bad as the camp, but she still sent me there, so does that make her as bad? If she’s the start of it all? Because she ruined my life and-”

“Eddie,” Bev says gently. “Slow down.”

“Right,” he says dully. “I just hate her, I think.”

“You should,” Stan whispers. “It says a lot about you that you tried to love her for so long. You’re so good, Eddie.”

“Not good enough to stay at home,” he whispers back, and his voice wobbles. “I don’t know what to do. You can’t avoid someone in Derry. I practically live in her pocket.”

“We’ll frame her for a crime,” Bev says, in her voice that Eddie can never identify as a joke or a statement. “Get her sent away forever.”

“Sounds ideal,” he says weakly. “Do you think I should live with Richie?”

Stan switches on the bedside lamp, and Eddie is suddenly reminded of his first night in their room, Bev climbing through the window, and Stan’s offer to bring him along. A life raft in the ocean.

“Do you want to?” Stan asks, and he says it like he knows there’s no easy answer. 

“Well, yeah,” he replies. “I’ve wanted to live with Richie  _ forever _ . I used to dream that his parents would take me in and we could just hang out all the time.”

“Sounds nice,” Bev chirps.

“Well now it’s all complicated,” Eddie scowls. “It got all screwed up.”

"You could stay with one of the others,” Stan says. “Didn’t you say Bill has, like, a fuckoff massive house?”

“I don’t think that’s the word I used,” he replies. “But yeah. Maybe.”

“Bill seems good,” Stan says idly. “He kept giving me his snacks in the truck.”

“They  _ all _ seem nice,” Bev points out, and Eddie feels a glow of pride in his friends. “Seriously, Eddie, I’ve never met one nice guy before Stan and you have a whole gang of them.”

“I just wish everything wasn’t so difficult,” he sighs, and rolls over in the soft comforter to rest his cheek on Bev’s knee. She strokes his hair affectionately, gentle patterns with long, elegant fingers. He wishes he could fall for her. It would be so much easier if he could make himself love her, say it all worked, leave it behind.

Eddie is not going to fall in love with a girl. He knows that now, that even if it’s not Richie, it will always be a boy who will steal his heart and make it ache in his hands. It makes him miss the lies he used to hold onto. He’s never going to have the American Dream life now, no wife and kids and white picket fence. He won’t get married, at least not any time soon, and the idea of holding someone’s hand on the street scares him. The bedtime stories have to end somewhere.

He’s not sure if he’ll ever have anyone in that way, if he’ll ever make it out from under the weight of these weeks, but he knows he has friends who will try and share the burden. 

There’s no way he’s even begun to process the enormity of it all yet, but time in Derry has always seemed to stretch out forever and there’s nothing else to do there but have a breakdown. He’ll get home first, he tells himself, which it strikes him is weirdly straight thinking all things considered.

“We’re all having a hard time, Eddie,” Bev says fondly, patting his cheek. “And you don’t have to worry about us right now, but we do know what you’re going through.”

“Oh,” Eddie murmurs. “Oh, I haven’t even asked you how you are. Sorry.”

Eddie turns his head and can see Stan’s bandaged arm poking out of the blankets. He looks like he could have the bones of a bird. So fragile. In the last few days, his memories of that night have been lost in the storm in his head.

“Hey,” Stan smiles at him, a little weakly, Eddie realises now. “It’s okay. Not your job.”

“We’re roomies,” Eddie asserts. “My job forever.”

Stan props his chin up on his fists and raises an eyebrow.

“We look after each other,” Bev says. “We deal with our own shit first, but we show up for each other. Always. We can swear on it.”

Before they can swear on it, there’s a thumping at the door and all three of them jump hard. Eddie supposes they’re all a little on edge.

“That’s, uh, probably one of your friends,” Bev says, and crosses her skinny arms so that the shaking isn’t so visible.

“I’ll get it,” Eddie says quietly and sits up, knocking their knees together and patting Stan on the shoulder as he passes.

He shouldn’t really be surprised to see Richie when he opens the door, but he is anyway. Seeing Richie is always accompanied by this faint feeling of the floor going out from under him these days.

“Oh,” Richie says, huffing out a sigh of relief. “You’re here. I thought you might be.”

“I was gonna come back,” Eddie tells him, which might be a lie. “Sorry.”

Richie’s expression of worry immediately melts back into a bright smile, and he kicks Eddie gently in the shin.

“That’s cool,” he says. “I get it.”

“Thanks,” Eddie replies, and turns around to see Stan and Bev blinking in the dim light from the hallway. “You can come in. If you want.”

“Well sure, Spaghetti,” Richie says brightly. “Billy won’t wake up until someone goes in there and shakes him.”

“That boy goes into a coma every night. It  _ can’t  _ be good for him.”

Eddie steps aside and Richie bounds into the room and jumps onto the bed, which creaks so loudly that Stan jumps and Bev nearly falls off the side.

“Hey guys,” he says. “We should get to know each other, right? We all love Eds here, you know?”

Stan flashes Eddie a slightly alarmed look and Eddie laughs, genuinely this time, as he comes to sit on the bed again. 

“Where’d you guys come from? Are you going back? Will we have to drive you? Do you both have parents as crazy as Eddie’s?”

From absolutely anyone else, these questions would have both of his friends running a mile to avoid discussing these things. It was different at the camp, where they were all in it together and there was no reason not to spill all their darkest secrets because they were forged in fire. In a tiny motel room, absolutely no one should be baring their soul.

But it’s Richie, and Eddie knows better than anyone that Richie just has this weird effect on people, so he gets his answers anyway.

“Oregon,” Bev says slowly. “Lived with my dad, technically, but I usually stayed with my aunt. He was kind of a screw-up.”

Eddie knows these words don’t even touch on the actual story, but he doesn’t say anything. That’s her story to tell, whenever she’s ready.

“Are you, like, a lesbian?” Richie cocks his head, and Eddie nearly puts his face in his hands. 

“No,” Bev says simply, which is about the answer Eddie supposes he deserves.

“What about you?” Richie asks Stan, wisely moving on. “What’s your deal?”

“Uh,” Stan says. “Connecticut. My dad’s a rabbi. If I go back, there’ll be trouble.”

“Damn,” Richie says. “You guys can live in Derry with us. We could all move to New York and wait tables for famous people or something though, ‘cause there’s no way I’m staying in that shithole once we’ve graduated.”

Over Richie’s shoulder, Bev widens her eyes at Eddie in faint incomprehension. He just shrugs at them. This is what Richie is like, has always been like, and will always be like. It’s kind of reassuring, if a little jarring.

“Should I get the others?” Richie wonders aloud. “We can make this a proper slumber party. I think Ben still has juice boxes. We’ll play Never Have I Ever!”

“We’re going to sleep,” Stan says drily, in a tone that suggests that this is not up for discussion. Eddie recalls that he’s never liked to talk after they’ve decided they’re going to sleep. “Sleeping in the truck is too hard.”

“Hey, we’re still fugitives,” Bev reminds him. “Let’s not get choosy.”

“We can sleep in a bed for the night, I’m not passing that up,” Stan whispers back, and Eddie wishes he could feel the same bright joy at something so simple.

“Boring,” Richie says, rolling his eyes teasingly. “I’m going back so Bill doesn’t get stolen. Eds, you coming?”

“I’m gonna stay here for a bit,” Eddie tells him. “Don’t run wild.”

Richie salutes him, then stares for a long moment like he isn’t sure that was the right thing to do, then quietly leaves. Eddie listens to the sound of his heavy footsteps fade away down the hall, then the creak and click of the door, then silence.

“I can’t sleep in a bed,” he admits to Stan and Bev after a long silence, and Stan, bless him, switches the light out. They’ve always talked to each other in darkness. “I felt safer in the truck.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Bev sighs. “I’m so sorry we left you there.”

“We didn’t want to,” Stan says. “I know that doesn’t make it any better, but we always would have come back for you.”

“I know,” he replies, and tries to fight past the feeling that he gave it all up for them and they took days to get back. It’s not their fault. “Hey Stan, what did Vic tell you about being in Isolation?”

There’s a shift in the blankets, and Eddie can make out Stan’s fingers picking at the threads.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” he says.

“I owe you that much,” Stan replies firmly. “Vic told me a lot, but sometimes he’d lie to scare me. And sometimes he just wouldn’t talk, I guess.”

“He was a bit weird,” Bev says softly. “I don’t know if you’d be able to compare notes, Ed.”

“I’m a bit weird,” Eddie points out, and Stan laughs shakily.

“True,” he says, affection creeping into his voice. “Okay. He said he didn’t eat, and when he did, he thought it was probably drugged. I think they talked to him a lot, like right in his space, tried to get in his head. They stopped pretending to be nice. He told me he knew what they really thought of us. They don’t want to help us. If we kill ourselves, it’s still job done.”

“Is that all he said?” Eddie asks, and tries to sound like he’s just curious.

“Yeah,” Stan replies stiffly. “Basically.”

He catches Stan’s eye for a moment in the dark and knows he’s lying. There are some things not worth saying out loud. Stan knows, and Eddie knows he knows. He just hopes that’s enough.

Bev doesn’t push it either, and she’s starting to push her words through a yawn every time she speaks, so they settle down for the night. Eddie ends up curling up on the carpet with a blanket and one of Stan’s pillows because he still doesn’t want the bed, and lets a strange, feverish sleep take him.

* * *

They’re nearly back in Maine when Richie realises that he feels like he and Eddie haven’t really reunited at all.

Eddie is here, of course, sitting up front with Mike and peering out of the windows at the trees, but he doesn’t really seem to inhabit himself. He hasn’t said one word about the chip packets under the seats (and Mike had apologised for them as they got in, clearly trying to encourage a reaction) or commented on the fact that Ben is suddenly coughing like a drain which would normally send him into hysterics.

He wants to ask Stan and Bev what they know, because they must understand it better than he does, understand  _ Eddie _ better than he does, but they’re all in the truck together and it’s not like they can step away to talk privately.

For now, he settles on kicking the back of Eddie’s seat with the tips of his sneakers. Just so Eddie knows nothing has changed.

He had returned to their room in the early hours the morning after spending the night with Stan and Bev, bones clicking and dark shadows under his eyes. Richie had decided by that point that he liked Stan and Bev, so he didn’t comment, but Bill had frowned with worry and then dropped the subject at the expression of exhaustion on Eddie’s face.

Eddie doesn’t seem tired now though, or if he is, he’s hiding it well underneath several layers of hyperactive anxiety. Richie thinks this might be what people think of him all the time.

“Hey guys,” Mike calls from the driver’s seat, not turning around because he is  _ a responsible driver, Richie, god,  _ but smiling in the mirror. “Nearly in Maine.”

“Yay,” Ben wheezes, then starts hacking like a dying Victorian orphan. Stan looks slightly alarmed. Then, after a thoughtful pause, “My mom is gonna blow.”

“You’re g-gonna be on some quack d-diet forever now,” Bill says mournfully.

“We’re all in so much trouble,” Mike adds. “Except maybe you, Richie. Maggie probably wishes she could have come.”

“Oh, I’m still in trouble,” Richie says. “I’m gonna be grounded for months.”

“Theoretically grounded,” Mike points out. “When have your parents ever followed through on that?”

“It’s the thought that counts,” Richie argues, then tries to draw Eddie back into the conversation with “Not you though, Eds. No one’s going to be mad at you at all.”

“My mom will be,” he says softly. “When they finally bite the bullet and tell her I escaped.”

_ Escaped  _ is a horrible word, he thinks. Like it was a prison.

“She w-won’t see you,” Bill says firmly. “We’ll k-keep you hidden. She’ll never find out where you a-are.”

Eddie just nods, goes back to staring out of the window.

“My dad is never finding out where I am,” Bev says darkly, and there’s a brief, uncomfortable silence. Ben pats her shoulder, which would be horribly awkward from anyone else, but comes off as painfully sweet when it’s him. Even Bev looks momentarily like the weight of the world has eased from her shoulders.

“What about you, St-Stanley?” Bill asks. “What will you do?”

“Hmm,” Stanley chews his lip. “I can’t go home. But I might send a postcard. No return address. Just so they know I haven’t offed myself in Cali somewhere.”

More tense silence. Richie thinks grimly that Eddie and Stanley and Bev really are hurting, and he’s not going to be able to fix it all with pithy jokes and his mom’s cookies until everything goes away. Things are just going to be shit for a while.

For a while, conversation turns back to easier things. Richie and Ben regale them with stories of their part-time jobs to raise money, which Eddie seems both touched and amused by. Bill talks about Georgie until Bev is practically dying to meet him (Stanley seems a little more hesitant) and Mike tells them about his favourite animals on the farm. They are all his favourite, Richie learns. Mike loves every single one of them like a child.

Richie is so engrossed in a story about the time a lamb slipped through the fence and escaped that he almost misses the  _ Welcome to Derry  _ sign as it appears around a corner of the winding road, looking smaller and more faded than he remembers. It’s no California, he supposes. The world is so big.

“Welcome home, Eds,” he says, and Eddie’s jaw tightens, his eyes wide and anxious.

“We’re going to take the longer route,” Mike says. “We won’t drive past your house, okay?”

“Right,” Eddie says faintly. “Yeah, okay.”

“Stan and Bev are coming with me, right?” Mike checks, and they both nod like bobbleheads. “And we’ll leave Eddie with Richie?”

“Actually,” Eddie says hesitantly, and everyone turns to look at him. “Bill offered to let me stay with him and...I think it might be better.”

“Oh,” Richie says. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Bill’s guilty expression. Clearly, this is something they’ve discussed. “Yeah, that’s fine. Whatever works.”

“Bill’s house just has more room,” Eddie mumbles awkwardly, and no one really disputes it. 

They drop Ben off first, drawing up outside his house and staring hesitantly at the closed curtains. Ben hops out of the truck and Eddie follows him for a moment, wrapping his arms around him tightly as they stand in the weak early morning light. After a long while, Ben gently detaches him, then waves to all of them and disappears up his path as they all call and cheer. They stay just long enough to watch his mother open the door and pull him into a hug, then pull away.

When they reach Bill’s, they sit quietly in the truck for a long moment.

“I d-don’t know what they’ll say,” Bill says quietly.

“Georgie will be happy to see you,” Mike reminds him, and Bill smiles shakily. “And he’s missed Eddie too!”   


“I can’t wait to see Georgie,” Eddie adds. “Really. World’s best kid.”

“I have got to meet this boy,” Bev says. “Someone introduce me soon. When you’ve explained to your parents that you abducted three kids across state lines.”

“Oh god,” Bill buries his head in his hands. “We actually d-did that.”

“It’s fine!” Bev waves a hand. “I wasn’t staying a second longer anyway.”

“We should g-go in,” Bill says. “Before they n-notice the truck and we all have t-to face the music.”

“Right,” Eddie says. “Can I talk to Richie for a moment? Outside?”

Richie feels himself turn a bit pink, but everyone nods and lets them out onto the street.

“Hey,” Eddie tells him. “Sorry for springing that on you.”

“It’s cool,” Richie says, because it totally is. “You can do whatever you need.”

“It’s partly for Bill,” Eddie continues. “I want to defend him if his parents...you know. And Maggie and Went are so great.”

“They’re the best,” he agrees, relieved that it’s not just about him. Just Eddie being good again. He knows exactly why he loves him so much.

“I am sorry though,” Eddie says softly. “I haven’t forgotten...everything. And it’s not like they’ve changed what happened before.”

Richie notices that he’s dancing around saying his feelings have changed, or that anything they’ve done has worked. He wants to  _ hurt  _ those people at that camp.

“Don’t worry,” Eddie tells him. “I’ll see you soon. And I’ll tell you the full Henry Bowers story. It’s a doozy.”

“I’m sure it is,” Richie says. “I guess we have a lot to catch up on.”

“I don’t think we’ve been apart so long since we met,” Eddie smiles sadly. “I missed you. I thought you’d never find me. But you came all the way to California.”

For a second he looks like he might burst into tears, but he shakes it off.

“Of course I did, Spaghetti,” he says, trying to keep his voice light. “I’d have come to Mars if you’d needed it.”

“Well,” Eddie replies, and he wonders if he may have pushed it too far. “I know. It means...it’s good to know. But I need some time.”

“You can have time,” Richie says quickly. “I can be totally patient. I can give you  _ years _ . I’ll pretend we don’t know each other.”

“Please don’t do that,” Eddie smiles weakly. “You’re still my best friend.”

“Not Stan?” It kind of just slips out.

“Just you,” Eddie says, looking a little amused. “Look, I’m just saying there are...things I can’t talk about yet. And you need to let me tell you when I want to.”

“Yeah,” Richie says quickly, admittedly relieved. “No, I’ll wait. As long as you need. I’ll wait.”

“Thanks, Rich,” Eddie replies, and just looks at him for a long moment, like he’s trying to figure out what he’s thinking.

Richie’s not even sure what he’s thinking himself, except that he loves him. He just waves him goodbye and lets Bill take him away.

The truck feels very empty now, just him and Mike with these two kids they barely know, still huddled together even though there’s space to stretch out. He supposes they’re each other’s lifeline.

“Have I ever told you thank you?” Richie asks. “For looking after Eddie.”

“Yes,” Bev says gently. “Many, many times.”

“Point taken,” he says. “But I still mean it.”

“We really do appreciate it,” Mike chips in. He looks exhausted. “And you’re Eddie’s friends, which means you’re in with us. Like a club, right?”

“A lame club full of  _ losers _ ,” Richie says, albeit fondly because it’s actually physically impossible to be rude to Mike.

“Well, that club was just me and Bev before, so I can’t really throw stones,” Stan says. “But we can’t just move in with you.”

“We could use extra hands on the farm,” Mike says easily. “My granddad’s getting older and there’s only so much I can do.”

“I’d be a great farmer,” Bev says, and Richie takes her in for a moment. Messy hair in a tangled ponytail, dark circles under her eyes, strong arms. She looks like she’s made for it.

Stan looks less certain, but Richie trusts that Mike won’t throw him in at the deep end because Mike is a nicer person than he is. 

“Do you think you’ll all be okay?” Richie asks hesitantly. “With everything. Do we need to like, send you to a shrink?”

“Oh, so much therapy,” Bev says sadly. “I dunno, Richie. I don’t think we’re okay. But I think we can hang on until we are.”

“Oh,” Richie kicks his feet against the seat. It’s the answer he expected, but a little reassurance would go a long way. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

“We have each other,” Stan says slowly, like he’s still considering it. “And we’re out of there. That has to be better.”

“Yep,” Bev snaps her fingers and points at him. “Nowhere to go but up.”

There’s a fake kind of cheer about her, brittle and harsh. He hopes she finds a way to mean what she’s saying.

A few minutes later, they’re at his house and he’s never been so glad to see it. The sight of his bedroom curtains, psychedelic and ugly, nearly makes his heart burst.

The sight of his parents is even better.

Within a few seconds of him knocking on his door (the way he always knocks, like he’s a human battering ram), the door is flung open and he’s crushed into his mother’s arms.

“Oh, Richie,” she gasps. “Never ever do that again. Ever. Ever.”

She’s got her hair up in a ponytail and she’s not wearing any makeup. Her sweater has a duck wearing glasses on it. He loves her more than he can put into words.

“I won’t,” he says, bewildered. “We got Eddie. He’s with Bill.”

“My god,” she says. “You are grounded forever. Mostly because I am never letting you out of my sight again.”

“Can I go and see Eddie tomorrow?” Richie tries.

“Grounded except for that,” she says. “I should call your father at work. We’ve been worried sick, Richie, you have no idea. Ben’s mother called the cops.”

“We know,” he grimaces.

“I did tell her that wouldn’t help,” his mom huffs. “You need to eat something. And then you need to tell me absolutely everything.”

“It’s a really long story,” he says, and suddenly feels exhausted to the very bone.

“How is Eddie?” His mom grimaces as she rips open a pack of Eggos. “That demon of a mother of his has been a nightmare. And we obviously couldn’t tell her you were gone. I panicked and said you broke your legs. Could you walk with a limp next time you see her? Is that crazy?”

Richie sinks into his seat at the kitchen table and stares at where he and Eddie had carved their names when they were kids, and thinks he has no idea how to answer the question of Eddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading and for your eternal patience with my dumb ass. this fic has two chapters left and i hope you'll like them as much as i do. the mood of this fic has shifted slightly- no story has changed but it will be lighter than I think some people were expecting. i hope you'll accept some love and better days
> 
> an important note: the uk parliament is currently debating conversion therapy again. i'm going to link to some resources with petitions to sign over on my tumblr because this issue isn't just for fic. also jk rowling is advocating conversion therapy so unfollow her on twitter if you haven't already
> 
> thank you all again <333
> 
> tumblr: grumpystan

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! i'll attempt to keep this on a fairly regular update schedule, and keep you updated on any roadblocks i may hit. kudos and comments feed the soul, and you can find me on tumblr at ghostmontygreen! come say hi <3


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